


Fireflies

by quixoticlux



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Americana, Angst, Ben is 18, Cannabis use, Coming-of-age, Complete, Earn Your Happy Ending, F/M, High School, I swear there’s also quite a bit of fluff, Jealousy, Less than a year between them, Mansfield Park meets Less than Zero, No Pregnancy, Omega Rey, References to Depression, Rey is 17 until epilogue, Rich Kids with Problems, SoCal setting, Teenagers have sex, Underage Drinking, You’re Gonna Suffer But You’re Gonna Be Happy About It, dreamy noir, existential angst and swimming pools, it doesn’t sound like it though from these tags, minor Ben/Kaydel, minor rey/poe, reference to suicide ch 6 and ch 15, set July through December, summer aesthetic, yes there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:07:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 76,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoticlux/pseuds/quixoticlux
Summary: “So do you think Ben only fucks Omegas?”“Jesus,Kaydel.” Rey turns around again. “Youdoremember he’s my cousin, right?”“Oh come on, like you haven’t thought about it. He’s so fucking hot. I’d fuck my cousin if he looked like Ben.”Rey’s thankful for the Wayfarers covering half her face, because she has, in fact, thought about it. Way more times than she’ll ever admit, even to herself. She stares hard at the water.Kaydel laughs. “God, you’re such a prude.”“And you’re such a virgin.”“Well, I won’t be for much longer,” she says. “Just watch.”It almost sounds like a threat.Rey doesn't think about her cousin Ben.She doesn’t think about how he’s going off to college in a month, all the way on the other side of the country. Or that he's kinda sorta dating her best friend. Or that he’s the hottest guy she’s ever seen… the most delicious Alpha she’s ever smelled, ever wished to taste. She doesn’t think about any of that.She just turns the music up louder.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Rey, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 428
Kudos: 1034





	1. Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [violethoure666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethoure666/gifts), [AlbaStarGazer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlbaStarGazer/gifts).



> This was originally posted April-September 2019. I left the fandom a few months ago and deleted everything. I really missed writing this fic though, so after going back and forth on it for a while, I decided to repost and continue. Some re-posted chapters are different from the original, with changed/added scenes. Chapters 8 (Genesis) and 11 (Cherry Coke and Arsenic) are changed the most.
> 
> Thanks to both BazineApologist and JenfysNest for beta’ing some chapters.

**I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy.**

**—CHARLES BAUDELAIRE, My Heart Laid Bare**

_You were sort of punk rock_  
_I grew up on hip hop_  
_But you fit me better than my favorite sweater_

_I will love you 'til the end of time_  
_I would wait a million years_  
_Promise you'll remember that you're mine_  
_Baby, can you see through the tears?_  
_Love you more_  
_Than those bitches before_

_“Blue Jeans” by Lana Del Rey_

* * *

It’s mid-July, the days stretched out long as waves of heat shimmer above cars and pavement like a mirage. Cicadas pulse in the trees surrounding the Solo’s backyard swimming pool, potted ferns jutting out everywhere in a facsimile of a jungle in an upper-middle-class Californian suburb.

Rey’s sitting on the cool slab of stone around the pool, idly kicking her feet in the water as she watches the sun glint on the turquoise waves. Her best friend since third grade is stretched out on the white lounge chair behind her, flipping through Cosmo as she sips from a straw in her Diet Coke.

It’s been a month and a half since school let out, and this is all they do all day. It’s an endless loop of monotony—of Diet Coke and splashes of cranberry in vodka and vanilla blunts, of ashes in cups and gunk at the bottom of the pool, of chlorine clinging to skin and hair, and the unrelenting, vague sense of wanting more—the heat making everything hazy around the edges, the days bleeding together like multiple exposures on film.

It’s purgatory.

At least they do it with style. Rey’s black bikini might not be as glamorous or sexy as Kaydel’s tiny gold lamé one, but it’s classic. An Audrey Hepburn to Kaydel’s Marilyn. While Rey’s wearing denim shorts, Kaydel’s got no such qualms of modesty, her bikini clearly worn more for the off-chance of catching Rey’s cousin than actually swimming.

“Listen to this,” Kaydel says from behind her red heart-shaped sunglasses. “‘The best blowjobs are given by surprise. When your man comes home from work, saunter over to him, unbuckle his belt, and kneel like a bad girl in a Sunday pew.’”

Rey rolls her eyes.

“‘Suck on an ice cube beforehand for maximum moans.’” Kaydel tilts her head, lowering her magazine. “Hey, do you think Ben has ever gotten a blowjob?”

“The fuck? How would I know?” Rey mutters to the water.

“Do you think he’d let me blow him?”

“Um… he has a girlfriend, remember?”

“I doubt Bazine ever went down on him. And ruin her lipstick? Maybe that’s why they broke up.” She goes back to her magazine. “…Or didn’t you know?”

_What?_

This is the first time Rey’s heard about it. Ben hadn’t mentioned it. Then again… why would he? It’s not like they're really close anymore. “Oh! Um…”

“Thank fuck too. She’s such a bitch.”

“She’s okay,” Rey defends, for some unknown reason. After all, it’s not like Bazine has ever been nice to her.

Kaydel scoffs. “She’s a cunt and you know it. I’m so glad she left for Yale or Harvard or whatever early.”

Rey doesn’t respond, because secretly she’s glad too.

The crinkling sound of pages turning. Rey can practically hear the question before Kaydel even speaks it. “So… do you think Ben misses her? Has he been moping around the house or whatever?”

Rey shrugs one shoulder. “He mopes all the time. That’s kind of his thing.”

“So… no difference?” There’s a tinge of hopefulness in her otherwise blasé tone.

“I don’t know. He’s, like, never home. He’s always out with his friends somewhere.”

Kaydel hums. “I saw him at a party a few weeks ago. He didn’t look like he was missing her. He was talking to some slutty girl in the kitchen.”

Rey feels mildly betrayed, for more than one reason. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

“About Ben and Baz? I thought you knew…”

“ _No_ , about the party. We always go together.”

Kaydel shrugs. “It was kind of last minute. Jess told me about it.”

A beat.

“Sorry,” she tacks on, not sounding sorry at all.

A few minutes pass in silence. It’s not exactly awkward, but it’s not completely comfortable either.

“So do you think Ben only fucks Omegas?”

“ _Jesus_ , Kaydel.” Rey turns around again. “You _do_ remember he’s my cousin, right?”

“Oh come on, like you haven’t thought about it. He’s so fucking hot. I’d fuck my cousin if he looked like Ben.”

Rey’s thankful for the Wayfarers covering half her face, because she has, in fact, thought about it. Way more times than she’ll ever admit, even to herself. She stares hard at the water.

Kaydel laughs. “God, you’re such a prude.”

“And you’re such a virgin.”

“Well, I won’t be for much longer,” she says. “Just watch.”

It almost sounds like a threat.

*

The next day, they’re lying out poolside again, the sun at the highest point in the sky, beating down relentlessly. Kaydel’s painting her toes red, bobbing along to Wu-Tang’s “Protect Ya Neck” as it plays on Han’s old boombox in the corner.

Rey sometimes wonders if Kaydel only comes by to catch a glimpse of Ben. If Kaydel even likes her anymore.

Or if she even likes Kaydel.

“Your mom’s going to be gone all week, right?”

“Not my mom,” Rey says. “And yeah, Leia’s got a conference up in Hanna City.”

Kaydel smiles. Rey’s learned from nine years of friendship that whenever Kaydel smiles, trouble follows.

She gets up from the lounge chair, waddling like a slutty duck to avoid smearing her nail polish, over to the sliding glass door leading into the house. She pulls it open.

Rey follows her, like she always does.

Stepping into the house is like stepping into another world, from somewhere hot and dry to the sharp arctic of the AC. It wakes Rey up from her heat-induced stupor like a slap in the face.

Kaydel’s bent over, rooting around in the fridge. Rey sits down at the marble island, then spies a black hoodie slung over one of the leather chairs.

It’s Ben’s.

She grabs it and slips it on, pulling her arms through it like it’s always been hers, the cotton slouchy around her small frame. She makes fists around the sleeves. God, fuck, it even smells like him.

Spicy, earthy, heady—and not just because of the faint smell of weed. A smell uniquely _Ben Solo_ , like campfires and woods and petrichor. And something else…

Something sharp and clean. Citrus?

“What are you doing?” she hears Kaydel ask.

Rey looks up at her and the two bottles of Smirnoff Ice in her hands. “What do you mean?”

“It looks like you were inhaling your sweatshirt for a second there. Feeling okay?”

Red nods casually. “Yeah, I just felt nauseous for a sec. Didn’t eat much today.”

“God, don’t turn into Paige. I swear, this is like, her _fifth_ time at the eating disorder clinic. She’s going all _Girl, Interrupted_ on us. Instead of a college dorm, she’s going to be hanging posters in a room in a psych ward.”

Usually Rey would defend Paige—if not out of compassion, then just to disagree with Kaydel. Small, minor things that aren’t enough to put her on the outs with the most popular girl in 12th grade, but just enough to show discontent. A revolutionary, Rey is.

But Rey doesn’t say anything. After all, Kaydel just caught her sniffing her cousin’s hoodie like a freak.

Kaydel hands her one of the Smirnoffs. Rey takes a long swig, then nearly chokes on it. She senses him. She doesn’t know how, but she does. It’s like she can feel him. Like he’s under her skin.

A few seconds later, Ben is walking past the threshold, black basketball shorts slung low on his hips and a black sleeveless tee showing off his biceps. Rey has to rip her gaze away from the expanse of his bare skin, slick and gleaming with sweat from his run.

“Hey,” she hears him say in that low, deep voice she definitely does not fantasize about late at night.

A shiver runs down her spine. She blames it on the AC.

“Hey,” Kaydel says in her most attractive voice, drawn out and lowered in pitch as she pops her chest out. Her gold bikini glows against her bronzed skin and yellow gold chains.

Ben gives her a tight-lipped smile as he goes to the fridge.

“So when are you leaving for Brown?” Kaydel asks casually.

“August 21st,” he replies, pulling out a bottled water and proceeding to down half of it. Rey tries not to watch the beads of sweat dripping down his neck. Tries not to think that this might be what his skin looks like during sex.

His eyes shoot over to Rey.

When he lowers his water, his gaze is still locked on her. She watches his eyes drift down, then up again.

Rey crosses her arms. “What?”

“Is that mine?”

Rey pulls the hoodie off her like it’s contagious. “Do you wear anything _other_ than black?”

“Says the girl wearing a black bikini.”

Kaydel puts the Smirnoff against her chest, wiping the condensation against her skin, down over her breasts. “It’s so hot.”

Rey rolls her eyes so hard into her head, it gives her a headache. God, could she be any more obvious? Surely Ben wouldn’t fall for this.

With a sinking dread, Rey watches as Ben watches Kaydel, his eyes roaming down her body in a way he’s never done—will never do—to Rey.

“Careful Leia doesn’t catch you drinking,” he says as he continues to stare at Kaydel, though Rey gets the feeling he’s talking more to her.

“She’s gone for the weekend. Another conference,” Rey says, her voice hollow even to her own ears. Sometimes it amazes her how unaffected she can pretend to be, that she almost manages to convince herself. “And let’s not pretend Han would even care.”

Ben doesn’t respond. Doesn't even nod. It’s like Rey doesn’t even exist.

She should be used to it by now. Kaydel’s always been _more_ than Rey—prettier, curvier, bubblier, shinier. Boys don’t even see Rey when Kaydel stands next to her. Even Alpha boys.

It doesn’t even matter that Kaydel’s a Beta. She’s gorgeous. She’s perfect. She’s prettier than most Omegas at their school, including Rey.

Not that designations really matter much, when everyone is on suppressants. It’s a requirement to attend school, along with vaccination records and birth certificates. Though every once in a while, when a breakthrough heat or rut is triggered… Well, there’s a reason Mr. Nicholls lost his teaching license last year.

Ben puts his earbuds back in, then without a word, turns and walks back out of the kitchen. They both listen to his footsteps up the stairs, then his door open and close a few seconds later.

“Did you see that?” Kaydel asks. “He was totally checking me out.”

Rey takes another swig of the Smirnoff. “Or he’s wondering why you’re dressed like Mr. T.”

Kaydel grins, still staring at the doorway as if Ben’s going to magically appear again. “Well, it looks like Ben’s into it. Maybe I’ll wear the chains when he’s fucking me.” She begins pounding on the counter in an imitation of it, humping the cabinet, tossing her head back and forth. “ _Yes, yes, yes, I pity the fool!_ ”

Rey laughs, despite the mental image, through the pain.

*

The late afternoon sun pours gold through the lush green leaves, the sky a cotton candy swirl of pink, blue, purple, and orange. As Rey lies on an inflatable yellow raft in the pool, she watches a plane fly overhead, streaking across the sky. She wonders where it’s going. Probably East, maybe New York or Boston. Maybe it just keeps going, to Dublin or Paris or Morocco. She imagines something Old Hollywood—sees herself through a camera lens fresh off the plane, sauntering into a 1940s noir in icy whites and deep blacks, draped in silk and dangling a cigarette.

Maybe the plane goes even further. Budapest. Prague. Moscow.

She imagines going to each place, leaving a lover behind in every city or port. Stay with me, they’d beg. _I can’t live without you. I’ll die, I swear I will._

She imagines them begging to sink their teeth into her mating gland as they fuck her into the mattress. And every time she’d say no, because even in her fantasies where she could be with _anyone_ , she’s only ever wanted to be with one man. He’d track her down somewhere, maybe a smoky lounge or in her hotel room, and upon seeing her with another man—another _Alpha_ —he’d grow so insanely jealous, he’d be a storm of rage and desire. It would rip him apart, watching from the shadows. The way she’s always felt whenever she’s seen him with Bazine, or any other girl in the hallways at school. He’d snarl at her faceless lover, and then he’d pick her up and throw her over his shoulder, and then… and _then_ …

She needs to stop thinking of Ben this way.

It’s wrong. It’s _sick_. He’s her cousin, for fuck’s sake. And even if that’s never been something that’s bothered her (she blames Jane Austen), he clearly doesn’t feel the same way. Soon he’ll be gone, and she’ll still be here. And no amount of fantasizing will change that.

She’s trapped, like the bugs floating on the water, struggling to get out until they eventually drown.

She’s not going to college, not with her grades. She’s not the worst student, but she’s not on the honor roll, either. At least Kaydel and her have that in common. But Kaydel is convinced she’s going to be a model/actress, even though she’s only done local catalogue work and hasn’t ever been cast in any of the school plays. She’ll probably end up marrying some ex-football player and have 2.5 kids and Instagram every moment of her entire life, with everything having a heavy filter over it.

Rey has no idea what she’s going to do. She knows she’s still got one year of high school left, and that’s plenty of time to change things around. To pull her grades up. To reinvent herself. But does anybody _really_ change?

She thinks of Han. Of how many times he’s crawled back to Leia after the affairs, after getting drunk every time he gets handed a one-month or two-month sobriety chip, after disappearing for days or weeks or even months on end. And Leia, who swears this time is going to be the last. Who leaves his stuff outside on the lawn, only to take everything back inside hours later before it gets wet or stolen.

As Rey reaches out and skims the water with her hand, her thoughts drift back to Ben, as they always do.

Will he change once he goes off to Brown?

Why did he have to pick a college all the way on the other side of the country? She can understand the need to get away from the never-ending shit show of Leia and Han, but is it to get away from her too?

They used to be so close, ever since she moved in with the Solos when she was nine and he was ten. After Mara died in that car crash on Route 20 and Luke fucked off shortly after to some hippy commune in Oregon. He still sends her a birthday card every year, though it’s always weeks late and something kiddish, and doesn’t contain anything other than wildflower seeds. Not even a measly twenty bucks, like what Kaydel’s father at least sends her.

 _We’re a generation without fathers,_ she thinks as she watches the sun continue to set behind the trees.

Every man in her life leaves her. Luke, Han—though at least his abandonment isn’t personal. And now, in a little over a month, Ben.

Sure, there’s always the holidays and summer break. But he’ll probably spend them as he always does—either out with his friends or holed up in his room, avoiding everyone, including her.

 _Especially_ her.

Rey screws her eyes shut, willing herself not to think of what happened two years ago. The day she stupidly messed up her suppressant schedule and went into heat early. The day she crawled into Ben’s bed and begged him to—

No.

No, she’s not going to dwell on this again. It happened. It happened and she can’t go back. She needs to go on pretending it never happened, just like everyone else does. Even if not talking about it means _not talking at all_.

As it grows more dim, the crickets begin their night song and the world is cast in a shade of pale blue.

Rey never takes her sunglasses off.

*

It's dark by the time Rey's pruned fingers finally slide the kitchen door open. Her body's chilly and damp, she’s dripping water everywhere, and all she wants to do is dry off and pull on some warm, comfy clothes, maybe get stoned and watch a period piece on Netflix. The last thing she wants is to see anyone, especially Kaydel. She’s reached her Kaydel quota for the day.

But Rey can hear her, laughing way too loud in the living room. And she knows it’s not at a funny text or meme. It’s the fake voice she uses when talking to boys at parties. Right on cue, she hears Ben’s voice—deep, low, murmuring. Private, intimate. A conversation Rey hasn’t been invited to.

She walks through the kitchen, her bare feet padding upon the tile, trailing fat drops of water. She walks past the living room in what she imagines is in a noble way, past Ben and Kaydel on the couch, willing herself not to look at them. Not even a glance. She keeps her eyes straight ahead, her face a monotonous mask as she pads up the carpeted steps and through the hallway and into her room, shutting the door behind her and locking it, just for good measure.

A few minutes later, after she’s pulled on yoga pants, a soft cotton tee, and a ratty, old Technical College of Tattooine sweatshirt she had stolen from her dad years ago, she hears knocking.

Rey ignores it at first, but she knows how Kaydel can get when she feels ignored.

“What?” Rey sighs after unlocking the door.

“I’m sleeping over.” Kaydel pushes past her, her bag slung over her shoulder. “Linda’s got a date and there’s nothing in the fridge except leftover egg rolls.” She flops down on Rey’s bed.

Rey wishes she could just say no for once in her life. “Whatever. You can sleep on the couch.”

“But your bed is so comfy,” Kaydel whines and pouts, already pulling the covers out.

“Why don’t you go sleep in Ben’s bed? You talk about it all the fucking time.”

Kaydel raises an eyebrow. “Maybe I will. Jealous much?”

“Don’t be gross.”

Kaydel bounces up and down on the bed. “You’re totally jealous. Holy shit. I never knew you felt that way, Rey-bear.”

Rey can feel her cheeks burning, despite the indifferent air she’s usually adept at affecting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says in her crispest voice, her English accent from her mother long faded, but still coming out at her coldest.

“You have a thing for me.” Kaydel laughs, then bites her pink lip gloss-stained lip. “I kind of figured. I mean, you call me all the time, you hate it when I hang out with Jess…”

Rey hits her with her pillow. “You’re such a bitch.”

“But seriously, do you think I should sneak into his bed naked while he’s asleep?”

“I think they call that assault, Kay.”

“I think he’d like it. You should have seen the way he was downstairs. He couldn’t stop staring at my tits.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “I don’t know why you didn’t just take off your halter right in front of him.”

Kaydel snuggles further into Rey’s bed. “Me neither.”

*

A thump wakes Rey up from dreams of car accidents and water.

She’s on the floor, a pile of pillows and blankets from the closet piled onto the shag cream carpet like pretend camping. As she reaches up to her nightstand table, she pulls her iPhone down and checks the time.

2:49 AM

Another thump.

Then another.

And another.

Rhythmic now, against the wall, behind her bed.

Where Ben’s room is.

Rey looks up at her bed to find it empty, the covers askew. She moves the bed out a few inches, then climbs into it, pulls her headphones on, pulls the covers over her head, and tries desperately to go back to sleep, praying for oblivion, for the closest thing next to death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's beautiful artwork from BazineApologist.


	2. The Stranger

_Everyone I have  
Don't get up or go away  
Thoughts on the floor  
Places that are mine  
Let everyone too near  
It's the end  
  
Tear the place apart  
Nothing left but dark  
Thoughts on the floor_

_Everywhere but here_

_“Thoughts on the Floor” by I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness_

* * *

It almost never rains in California in July.

Due to Hurricane Dolores sweeping past Baja, tropical moisture surges up the Gulf, resulting in thunderstorms raging from the Four Corners to the Southwest deserts. Even the coastal cities get hit. Warning alerts of flash floods and mudslides light up Rey’s phone, parts of Interstate 10 washed out, but she just clears it away as she searches through her music library.

The sky is an endless gray, sheets of rain swaying the leaves and beating down on the stone slabs and pool water. There’s something beautiful about how rare it all is.

Rey watches it from her bedroom window, the glass and screen slid up so she can tap the ash out from her blunt. It’s pineapple-flavored—not her favorite, but the cashier at 7-Eleven had messed up and grabbed it instead of the apple one she had pointed to.

The weed is pretty good. Sticky, with visible crystals and brown and purple hairs. Poe really came through for her. It’s surprising that the star quarterback of Chandrila High—Homecoming King and Class President who looks as wholesomely-American as a WWII recruitment poster—moonlights as a drug dealer. As far as she knows, he only deals weed, but there _was_ that rumor last year that the coke Jess OD’ed on and was sent off to rehab for came from him.

Rey wonders why he’d deal in the first place. Why risk the gangs or the full ride he’s got to San Diego State? She knows he doesn’t come from money the same way Jess, Bazine, and Ben do… but is he really that hard up?

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that Poe’s worse off than any of them. He’s always been an expert at fitting in—his smile so blindingly white, his charm so smooth, his clothes always clean and hair perfectly coiffed—that it’s easy for the sharks around there to miss the smell of blood of a boy who lives in a trailer park _literally_ by the railroad tracks.

It’s so weird to think how he used to date Bazine. Did it kill him to see his best friend with his arm slung over her, touching her, kissing her, the way he used to? Rey doesn’t have much experience with Alphas, let alone boys, but isn’t possessiveness part of the deal?

Rey feels strangely possessive of Ben, and she’s not even an Alpha. _Or_ an ex-girlfriend.

 _He’s single_ , Rey reminds herself for the zillionth time as she hears Kaydel’s giggling through the thin wall separating her and Ben’s bedrooms. _So are you. It’s none of your business if he wants to waste his time with someone whose only life goal is to be on The Real Housewives of Orange County._

Rey knows she’s not one to talk.

The only thing that’s ever interested her—that she’s ever been kind of good at—is tinkering with machines and car engines. She misses the late golden afternoons she used to spend with Han in the garage, before his drinking got really bad again. Even if it was just handing him a socket wrench or cold can of Budweiser. She _doesn’t_ , however, miss the scowling of a younger, Hot Topic-clad Ben in the background, even though whatever they were working on never interested him, except for the time Han and him built his electric guitar. These days, the garage is used for storage, dust gathering on top of the workbench and sheet-covered cars, motes floating in the stale, pale yellow air, forgotten.

Now, the only thing Rey’s good at is rolling joints and pretending not to care.

She wonders if she’s still pretending, or if this is like a years-long role she’s gotten lost in, like a method actor or undercover detective. She’s so good at it, she thinks maybe she _should_ be an actress. She’s in the right city for it. But LA is haunted. Ghosts of the past and dreams-that-will-never-be cling upon the living like parasites, slowly draining all energy and hope until everyone’s a shadow of what they once thought they’d be.

She’s too young to be so jaded, Han would say. _Lighten up, kid. Jee-sus._

Rey closes her eyes, feeling the drops of water on her outstretched hand.

It’s been four months since anybody’s seen him. She thinks maybe he’s really dead this time.

When he first started disappearing again, Leia called every hospital within a 100-mile radius, every homeless shelter, every friend slash poker buddy he had ever borrowed money from. But by the fifth or sixth disappearance, the calls became less frequent. The phone stayed on the hook on the wallpapered wall in the kitchen; cell phones were only picked up to check Facebook and Twitter. He’ll get back to us when he’s ready, they rationalized. He’ll show up like nothing happened, drunk off his ass, singing old, bawdy songs and asking us if we’d die for this country. If there’s anything we love enough to die for.

Rey stubs out the blunt on the wet window ledge.

She’s going to have to save this. Make the eighth stretch if she’s going to withstand having Kaydel around all the fucking time. Especially Kaydel _with_ Ben.

Kaydel and Ben. Ben and Kaydel.

Their names together give her the strong urge to vomit.

It’s not like Rey thought Ben was a virgin. She knows he’s had several girlfriends going back to his freshman year, ever since he grew his hair long and started growing into his awkward and lanky features. But he usually spent time with his girlfriends away from the house, likely in their rooms or drinking in cars in parking lots. Bazine’s been over a few times for dinner, but she never stuck around. And if they had ever fucked in his room, well, Rey never knew it. Never had to fucking hear it.

Ben’s room is tainted now. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to go inside again. Not that she ever does.

_Okay. That’s a lie._

A few times, she’d snuck into his room when he was out with friends. In her defense, the ache had felt so great, so deep, she thought she’d die.

She knew somehow that only Ben could relieve it, and being surrounded by his things, his scent—it’s the closest she’ll ever come to him. She’s embarrassed to admit she’s touched herself on his bed, her nose to his pillow and his sheet tangled in between her legs, her fingers rubbing her clit as she thrusted erratically against his mattress, her walls clenching around nothing as she imagined his dick _in_ and _out_ and _in_ and _out_ , his knot and cum filling her until she thought she’d burst.

She’d had to wash his sheets after. He might be completely oblivious sometimes, but she’s pretty sure he would see—if not smell—an Omega’s slick all over his sheets, her orgasm screaming out for him in ways she never could.

He’s never asked about the new sheets on his bed.

Rey figures he assumes it’s Leia changing them. But sometimes…. _God_ , she could swear he knows. Just the way he looks at her over the dinner table or as they pass by each other in the hall.

Sometimes she wonders if her scent affects him the same way. But going off of how horrified he’d looked that day two years ago when she went into heat early and begged him to fuck her, she knows it doesn’t.

She repulses him.

The thought sears through her, rubbing salt in the wound that’s never fully healed.

 _Fuck it_ , she thinks as she re-lights the rest of the blunt.

*

Knocking on her door.

Rey opens the door to find Kaydel’s standing there, wearing Ben’s black hoodie.

A tsunami of rage and possessiveness rises within Rey. She can feel the growl rising within her from someplace primal before she forces herself to reel it back. _A threat_ , the ancient Omega yells. _Your Alpha. Yours_.

“Hey Rey-bear,” Kaydel says, walking into the room and glancing around. “Mind if we have some of your weed? Ben ran out.”

“No,” Rey hears herself growl. _Calm down_ , she reminds herself. _Poise. Control._ “I ran out. Why don’t you just text Poe?”

“We did, like two hours ago, but he hasn’t responded yet.” She narrows her eyes. “You sure you don’t have any?”

“Nope.”

Kaydel flops down on the bed, the mattress bouncing up and down. “So guess what?”

Rey just stares at her.

This is clearly invitation enough for Kaydel.

“Ben and I fucked last night. _And_ this morning,” she announces, grinning, the cat that got the cream. Biting her lip, she waits for a reaction.

Rey doesn’t give it to her. She’s already given her so much. Too much. Kaydel might have Ben, but she won’t have Rey.

Still, the confirmation of what she already knows hits her, despite having seen it coming.

_Control. Control. Control._

“So I guess Ben _does_ fuck Betas,” Kaydel continues. “Maybe I’m actually an Omega! I mean, he kept smelling my skin—”

“Spare me the details, thanks.”

“—and I’ve heard of late presenters—”

“That’s incredibly rare,” Rey interrupts. “You’d know that if you ever paid attention in health.”

“I know. But it’s possible, right?”

“Not really. Even sixteen is pushing it. You know I presented at the age of twelve.”

Kaydel sighs heavily, clearly not happy with the truth. Rey hopes whatever stupid fantasies she has of becoming Ben’s Omega are crushed, obliterated, annihilated. Atoms ripped apart.

Neither of them will ever be Ben’s Omega.

The sooner they accept that, the better off they’ll both be.

*

Rey’s hoodie and yoga pants are soaked by the time she reaches Sunny Day Mobile Home Community, the billboard sign peeling and the anthropomorphic sun looking just as creepy as she remembered it.

She’d only been here once before, about two years ago, having tagged along with Ben as he went to pick up Poe, even though he only had a driver’s permit at the time. Getting around in Southern California without a car is next to impossible, though Rey doesn’t think Poe’s ever had a car. Every cent of cashiering at the supermarket or drug dealing seems to go to basic necessities or his college fund.

Rey’s thankful for the car Leia had bought her for her sixteenth birthday. She’s not technically allowed to drive without a guardian until she’s 18, but seeing as Han’s missing and Leia’s hardly home, she does it anyway. It’s times like these she realizes how privileged she really is.

Rey knocks on his door. A few seconds later it’s swinging open, Poe barefoot and shirtless, his skinny black jeans slung low on his waist. The smell of _Alpha_ hits her like a brick wall—amber, bourbon, spice, something sweet…. vanilla?

“Uh… Rey?”

“Mmmm?”

“You’re, uh… I don’t know how to tell you this, but…” he rubs the back of his head, “you’re smelling me.”

What?

Rey suddenly realizes her nose is directly over Poe’s neck. _Oh_.

Horrified, she takes a step back into the rain. “Oh my god. I’m so sorry.”

Poe just grins in that cocky way he always does. “It’s okay. I know I must smell good.” He steps back to let her in, then turns around. “I’m on suppressants though. I mean, they’re not the best quality, but—”

“Of course.” Rey nods, following him inside. “I wasn't implying—”

“—my insurance isn’t that great, and state healthcare sucks, so…”

“Right, yeah.”

Rey glances around the trailer. It’s not so bad. Sure, everything is old and nothing looks like it’s been updated since the 1970s, but at least it’s clean. And Poe’s put his own touches on the place, a few art prints hanging on the walls and a plaid tablecloth on what she assumes is a fold-out, wood-paneled table.

Poe grabs a pile of clothes on the couch against the wall, motioning for her to sit down. He almost seems nervous for some reason, even though they’ve known each other ever since Rey moved here. He’s always been Ben’s best friend, as much as she’s always been Ben’s cousin.

“Nice place,” Rey remarks as she sits primly down on the scratchy polyester.

“Yeah, you know…” He shrugs one shoulder. “It’s a place to live.”

Rey peers at the single bedroom in the back. “Is your mom and step-dad around?”

“No, uh, it’s mine. They moved to Washington last year.” He goes over to the fridge. “Want anything? I’ve got water, iced tea…”

“No thanks,” Rey says. “Shit Poe, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

He shrugs again. “No big deal. I’ve been doing alright. And in a month I’ll be living in the dorms at Cal State.” He leans against the cabinets. “So uh, what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I can’t just visit an old friend?”

Poe raises an eyebrow over the rim of his cup.

Rey sighs. “I couldn’t stay in the house a second longer. I needed to get out.”

Poe frowns. “What’s wrong? Something happen with Ben?”

“No.” Rey picks at a loose thread from the sleeve of her hoodie. “…Nothing ever happens with Ben.”

There’s a pause before she hears Poe walk over and sit down next to her, the cushions compressing with his weight. He slings an arm around her shoulders. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“He told you?” She still can’t look at him.

“Yeah. Back when it happened, I mean. We haven’t talked about it since. But… I’m pretty good at picking up on things. Especially when your scent spikes around him.”

Rey screws her eyes shut, groaning, burying her head in her hands. “Oh my god. I want to die.”

He rubs circles on her back. “It’s okay! Honestly, I doubt he’s ever noticed. He’s always seemed pretty wrapped up in—”

“Bazine, yeah. And now he’s wrapped up in Kaydel,” she mutters bitterly.

Poe takes a deep breath in. “Oh, wow. Shit, that must be hard for you. I didn’t see that one coming.”

“I think I’m going to need more weed.”

“On it.” Poe gets up from the couch, then disappears into the back bedroom. A minute later, he’s returned with a large plastic-filled bag of marijuana and a scale. He sets it up on the coffee table, measures out way more than an eighth, then wraps it up in a baggie and hands it to her.

Rey goes to hand him a $50, but he’s shaking his head. “It’s on the house. Well, trailer.”

“No, I couldn’t—”

“It’s okay, Rey. Seriously, take it.” He begins breaking up a bud and peppering it onto joint paper, bits of weed falling out onto a worn paperback of Albert Camus’ _The Stranger_. He shakes it back in.

“Thanks,” she says, pocketing it.

“No problem.” He rolls the joint with his index fingers and thumbs back and forth, back and forth. “I know what it’s like, you know. With Baz.”

“I know.”

“I’m always around. If you ever want to talk.” He licks the paper, his eyes flicking up at her.

“Until next month. Then you and Ben are gone.”

“He’ll be 3,000 miles away. I’ll only be a two hour drive.”

The joint is twisted at the end. A spark of a Bic lighter, the flame rising brilliant and high. And then a billow of smoke, floating in the air like clouds.

He passes it to Rey.

She takes it, their fingers brushing.

“You know…” Poe smiles as he watches her take a long, deep hit. “…if you ever wanted to make Ben jealous…”

Rey coughs, her lungs burning. “I don’t think that’s possible.” She takes one more hit, then hands it back to him. “But I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Especially as you're having your heat soon.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” He tilts his head. “Can’t you tell?”

“You can smell it?” _What a dumb question_ , she thinks. _Of course he can smell it._

Poe shifts from where he’s sitting on the carpet. “Yeah.”

“Fuck. So this means Ben can probably smell it.”

Poe nods. “I’m surprised you haven’t sent him into a rut already. Being around an Omega close to heat all the time…”

Rey screws her eyes shut, willing the memories to go away. Just once she wishes she could forget. She wishes the weed would lobotomize her.

_Please Ben. Please, I need you. It hurts. It hurts so bad._

_Please Alpha. Alpha. Fuck me. Alpha._

No.

Rey stands up abruptly. Looks around wildly. “Got any music?”

“Yeah,” Poe says as he scrolls through his phone. A few seconds later, “Thoughts On the Floor” by I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness drifts out of the Echo in the corner.

She goes over to the door and swings it open.

The rain has started up again, harder than before. It beats upon the patches of spare grass and puddles of mud. She can hear it pattering upon the tin roof, mixing in with the whooshing of cars and spacey, hollow synthesizers. Mists rise in the mountains in the distance.

A horn of a train reverberates through her as the drums start to beat and the bass thrums. She can feel it low in her gut. A gust of cool, damp air kisses her skin, blows back loose strands of her hair.

She feels Poe standing behind her. Can feel the heat of his skin.

Maybe having her heat with him wouldn’t be so bad. It would definitely be better than having it alone, as always, shut up in her room, with nothing but a silicone dildo with a knot at the base, and the deep ache that will never be filled no matter how hard she tries.

She’s seventeen and still a virgin. What is she waiting for?

She knows the answer to this, but she pretends not to.

*

It’s dusk by the time Rey gets home.

Someone left the front light on. Fireflies drift over the wide, immaculate lawn, glowing yellow in the pale blueness before fading away.

She used to catch them with Ben when they were really young, back when everyone got together for barbecues and illegal fireworks every Fourth of July.

Her favorite part of catching them was releasing them. Ben used to put them in a mason jar and forget about them until she’d find them dead at the bottom of the glass. She knows they’re just bugs and there’s a billion of them, but it always made her sad for some reason.

The house is dark, but there’s the faint strains of music through walls.

As Rey ascends the steps, she listens for any sounds of Kaydel. A headboard thumping against walls or giggling.

But there’s nothing. Just really melancholic music.

She lingers outside Ben’s door, a warm glow from underneath pouring into the darkened hall.

Interpol. Yeah, she thought so.

Rey takes a step to go to her room, but the air is shifting. The motes depart as the smell of Alpha—of Ben—grows so strong, it’s overwhelming. She puts her sleeve up to her nose.

“Hey,” she hears Ben say from behind her. His deep, low voice sends a shiver straight down to her cunt, her thighs. God, all he did was greet her. _Fuck_. This heat’s going to be _bad_ , she already knows it.

“Hey,” she responds as casually as she can, still not looking at him.

There’s a long pause as Ben continues to stand in the threshold and Rey lingers in the hall. In her peripheral, she can see the orange-yellow light of his room framing his body. She tries not to look at him, but she can’t help it. He’s just as blinding and dangerous as staring at the sun.

“Talk to Poe?” he asks.

Rey’s eyes snap to his. “How did you know?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “I can smell him on you.”

“Oh. Yeah. He gave me some weed.”

Ben just stares at her. She doesn't know if it’s just the shadows playing tricks, or if his eyes are really _that_ dark. “Really.”

“What?”

She watches a muscle jump in his jaw as he clenches it. “He just gave you weed? Nothing else?”

Rey bristles, crossing her arms. “What else would he give me?”

“I mean… nothing else happened?”

What is he talking about? Why does he care? Before she can ask, he’s shaking his head and looking down, running a hand through his waves. “Forget it” he mutters. “I think I’m just tired.”

“Yeah, it’s exhausting being around Kaydel, isn’t it? Can’t imagine what it’s like to fuck her. Must drain the life force right out of you.”

Ben looks up again. There’s something there, she thinks. But maybe it’s just another trick of the light.

Rey starts to head to her room.

“Rey?” she hears him call behind her. She stops but doesn’t turn back around.

“Did you forget to take your suppressants again?”

She whips around fast, striding up to him with a surge of rage. She’s close now, closer than she’s been to him in years, invading his space, pointing a finger into his ridiculously-broad and muscled chest. “How dare you,” she seethes. “I have been perfect about taking them—”

“Except that one time.”

They stare at one other, neither blinking in an old-fashioned stand-off.

“It’s important to keep to a schedule,” he says. “You know I need to make plans.”

Her past heats flash through her mind. Twice a year like clockwork, Ben spending them over at a friend’s. Leia—an Alpha herself—always was good about keeping them apart.

“I’m taking my suppressants,” she repeats.

Ben doesn’t look like he believes her.

She sighs. “It might be a break-through.”

Darkness crosses his face. “Did Poe trigger it?”

Rey shrugs.

Ben’s gaze roams down over her body. She swears she can feel it, like it’s a physical thing. When he looks into her eyes again, there’s no trace of brown with flecks of green anymore—it’s all black.

Suddenly she realizes exactly how close they are. _Millimeters_.

She thinks her heart is skipping beats. Something electric is sparking in the spaces between them. If she weren’t staring at his lips, she thinks she might even be able to see it.

The anticipation of falling, like a rollercoaster at the top seconds before the plunge. A rush of something warm and wet below.

His nostrils flare. His lips part.

Then he’s taking a step back. The space becomes an ocean again.

“Goodnight, Rey,” he says, shutting the door softly behind him.

Rey stands there in the semi-darkness for what feels like hours but must really be minutes. Then she’s turning around, going back to her room, back to the safety of her string lights and band posters and shelves of books and poorly-drawn art hanging on the walls, back to the tin containing her stash, back to her playlists and headphones, back to the dildo in the bottom drawer of her nightstand, back to her twin mattress that’ll never have Ben in it, back to the loneliness that’s the closest friend she’s ever had.


	3. Disappear Here

_Let me give you what you'd like_  
_I can make your mouth run dry_  
_Drink me like a liquor_  
_Come on and dip your dipper_  
_Show me what you're here for, guy_

_I can give you what you want_  
_I can make your back real taut_  
_Fantastic flavored fancies_  
_Sick like Sid and Nancy_  
_Wicked as a joyride jaunt_

_“Ice Cream” by New Young Pony Club_

* * *

It’s 9:30 in the morning, and Rey’s eating mint chocolate chip ice cream straight from the carton.

It’s a bright day, the sun glimmering on the pool waves, blinding her. She stares at it from the kitchen table as she licks the spoon obscenely, not bothering to stop when Ben walks in.

She watches him in her peripheral as he opens the fridge and cabinet doors. He makes himself a bowl of cereal, scrolling on his phone as he leans over the counter and begins to eat.

“You can sit down, you know,” Rey says. “I’m not going to bite.”

Right after she says this, her cheeks flame. Ben freezes mid-chew, but then he’s shrugging, walking over to her with his bowl.

Still, he sits all the way at the other side of the table, as far away from her as possible.

Ben goes back to eating and scrolling. Rey goes back to staring at the water and licking her spoon.

“Hux is in Europe,” he says after a few minutes have passed, not looking at her. “With Phasma.”

“That’s nice,” Rey responds.

Ben looks up, giving her a knowing look.

 _Oh_ , she thinks. _So that’s where he spends his ruts._

Rey takes a big bite of her ice cream, thinking. “Is there anyone else you can…?”

Ben shakes his head. “Maybe I can check into a hotel or something.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ben shrugs. “It happens.”

It hits her then. Ben is going into rut. She’s going into heat. And they’re going to both be under the same roof for the first time, without Leia or Han.

“You shouldn’t have to do that,” Rey says. “This is your house. You should stay here.”

“It’s your house too, you know.”

“Not really.” She looks back at the water. “Not in the same way.”

Silence.

“Maybe I’ll go over to Poe’s,” Rey says, after a while.

The sound of a chair scraping across the tile. She watches Ben get up and go over to the sink. Listens to the water run as he washes his bowl and spoon. Then he’s drying them with the dish towel, putting them away.

How odd. She’s never seen him wash anything in her life. It’s almost like he’s lingering.

“Eat something besides ice cream,” he says as he walks out.

There’s something in between the lines. Something she’s never heard before.

It doesn’t occur to Rey until later, as she’s rooting around in the fridge to make a sandwich, that it was an Alpha command.

*

**DISAPPEAR HERE.**

It glows brightly in pink neon against the wall of Knots, the sex shop on Melrose.

The owner must have some wicked sense of humor, as shiny chrome bubbles of all different sizes pop out against the black brick exterior, distorting the reflection of anyone who walks up to it. But despite the name and all the bubble-knots, the shop isn’t only for Alphas and Omegas—even if it specializes in products designed for them.

The hot pink light glows upon Rey and Kaydel as they wander down one of the aisles. While it radiates off Kaydel’s long bleach blonde waves and makes her look like she’s in a NYLON photoshoot, it makes Rey’s already-flushed skin look even redder. It’s cool inside the shop, but there’s a layer of sweat gleaming on her bare arms and legs, and as she lifts her shirt repeatedly to fan herself, she covertly smells her underarms, praying to the universe she doesn’t smell. Logically, though, she knows the smell of sweat is the least of her problems. It’s the smell of her oncoming heat that she should really be worried about.

She prays she doesn’t run into anybody she knows.

Kaydel picks up a black whip from one of the hooks. She strikes a pose, lifting the whip in the air, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips to look like what she assumes is a Dom. “Take a pic,” she demands, handing Rey her phone.

Rey does as she’s told, but intentionally at a bad angle, cutting off half her arm. Kaydel peers at it. “You never take good pictures,” she whines. “I don’t know how you won that stupid contest in photography class sophomore year.”

“Me neither.” Rey shrugs, thinking back to the 35 mm monochrome film she had developed in the school’s darkroom, the photos of city lights glittering in between looming foothills, the feeling of isolation and loneliness it evoked. The sun blaring white in between swaying palm leaves. A desert bloom. _LA is weird_ , she thinks as she picks up a jar of strawberry-flavored clit sensitizer gel.

A pair of furry red handcuffs are now on Kaydel’s wrist. “I wonder if I should get these? Ben can cuff me to his bed.”

“He has a wooden bed frame,” Rey points out without thinking.

“Maybe I should buy him a metal one then.” She takes it off her wrist, but doesn’t put it back. “You know those Alphas are _all_ about dominance.” A pause. “Oh, right. Sorry. You’ve never been with an Alpha before.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “You’ve been with _one_. Stop acting like you’re an expert.”

They continue down the aisle, making their way to the back. Shelves of dildos and vibrators of all different sizes, shapes, and colors line the wall. A rainbow of cocks. This is exactly why Rey had come today—why she bothered to leave the comfort of her room’s AC to suffer through 83 degree heat and Kaydel bringing up her sexual experiences at every turn in some sort of oneupmanship. Rey wonders if she should have a trophy engraved with “I had sex with an Alpha!” just so Kaydel can carry that around instead and shut the fuck up about it already.

She had originally planned on coming alone. She _should_ have come alone. But the truth is… Kaydel is the only friend she really has. The only person who spends time with her, who returns her texts and likes every tweet and Instagram post. Jess had become a Scientologist since leaving rehab, Paige was still in the eating disorder clinic, and Rose was away at camp for the summer. Besides, Rey and Rose didn’t really talk anymore, their lives moving in opposite trajectories like a physics equation. As Rey began cutting class to smoke behind the gym, Rose won award after award. As Rey went to parties only to end up feeling more alone than ever, Rose stayed home, yet managed to snag a boyfriend.

Rey wishes she had more friends. Wishes she could talk more. Wishes everything she said was interesting and clever and profound. But she thinks the only interesting thing about her is that she doesn’t talk much, which somehow gives the impression of aloof mysteriousness. It’s pretty much the only thing she’s got going for her. Even being an Omega doesn't matter. It’s not like they’re rare, even if they're less common than Betas. No, it’s beauty and wealth and talent that really matters.

Kaydel picks up one of the boxes, reading the features on the back. “Don’t you already have one?”

Rey scans the price tags above them. “Yeah, but it’s old. And it’s a dildo, not a vibrator. Leia got it for me years ago… which I’m still recovering from the embarrassment, by the way. You’ve seen it. It’s plain white, kinda modernist. Looks like something Ikea would sell.”

Kaydel snorts. “Oh yeah. That thing doesn’t even look like a dick.” She puts the box back on the shelf. “Definitely not like a _real_ Alpha’s dick.”

If Kaydel begins describing Ben’s dick, Rey just might kill her. And then she’ll have to call Leia all the way up in Hanna City, interrupting her conference for bail money.

Wolf vibrators line the top shelves. They’re top of the line, the crème de la crème of sex toys, their most popular being the ones designed for the Omega—longer and thicker than what a Beta can take, with a squishy knot at the base.

Rey grabs the Signature Thrusting Wolf in black. She figures she might as well go with the color scheme of most of her clothes. An existential vibrator. A mourning vibrator.

The back says it’s rechargeable silicone with a thrusting tip, boasting three thrusting speeds and seven clitoral vibration functions for the wolf ears. Even the knot vibrates. It’s so much bigger than the one she has now, even stylish. And—as Rey checks the price—expensive. $149.95.

It’s worth it though, she rationalizes. She’s going to need it. From what she remembers in health class, breakthrough heats tend to be shorter than natural heats twelve times a year, or scheduled heats twice a year when on suppressants. Shorter, but more intense. Three or four days of going out of your mind with need, and cramps so bad, you feel like you’re being stabbed. Of the world turning into a fever dream bursting with oversaturated colors and tastes and smells, the dial turned all the way up. It’s like being lost in the middle of the desert for days, the thirst driving you mad.

Rey wants to be prepared this time. The Ikea dildo won’t cut it—she needs something more. What she _really_ needs is an Alpha, but she’s hesitant about using any apps. Just her luck, she’d end up murdered, found cut in half like the Black Dahlia.

Poe flashes through her mind. Could she…?

“What do you think of this?” Kaydel asks, shoving a box in her face.

_Knot Trainers. From Beta to Omega!_

“What the fuck is that?”

Kaydel turns it over to the back. “It has inflatable knots that range in sizes so you can train your muscles to—”

“Just when I thought I’ve seen everything.”

“Hot pink or sparkly purple?” Kaydel holds up both.

“Neither,” Rey answers, moving away from her and into another aisle, the Wolf vibrator box with its 1970s gold porno font clutched to her chest.

Kaydel grabs a shopping basket and puts the furry handcuffs and sparkly purple knot-trainers into it. They wander down another aisle, Kaydel picking up a bottle of fake slick next to the regular lubes.

They go their separate ways for a few minutes. When Kaydel returns, Rey can _smell_ her.

Rotten lilies and death and something chemical. It reminds her of a saccharinely-sweet fruit-and-floral drugstore body spray trying to mask the smell of decay. It’s repulsive.

Rey gags, clamping her fingers around her nose. “Did you roll around in the dumpster outside or something?”

Kaydel holds up a light pink perfume bottle with rhinestones on it. The same company—From Beta to Omega!—is emblazoned on it in loopy script. _Omega Spray_ , it reads.

“Do I smell like an Omega?” she asks as she practically shoves her neck into Rey’s face.

Rey takes a huge step back, nearly knocking into a display. “No, you smell like shit.”

“Well it got a lot of great reviews online, so maybe you just don’t like it because I _do_ smell like one. Competition and all that.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s it.” Rey rolls her eyes. “In fact, you should totally get it.”

Kaydel puts it in her basket. “I can’t wait to see how Ben reacts. But poor Rey-bear…” She pouts. “…all alone. There’s this guy I think who’d be _perfect_ for you. Snap—”

“No thanks,” Rey says cooly. “I’m good.”

When she goes up to the register to pay for the Wolf, it feels like an accomplishment of some sort. She doesn’t need Ben. Or Poe. Or some nameless, faceless Alpha on an app. She might be ruled in part by her biology, but she’s not a slave to it.

And because the universe has a sense of humor, Britney Spears’ “I’m a Slave 4 U” begins playing on the overhead speaker in the shop. It’s the perfect time to get out of there.

*

Rey spends the afternoon swimming laps in the pool, the water cooling her skin, the sharp smell of chlorine filling her nose and dissolving any lingering remnants of that Omega spray from the fifth circle of hell. Her muscles burn, her eyes sting, but she keeps going back and forth, back and forth.

It’s twilight by the time she wraps a towel around herself and pulls open the sliding kitchen door—

—to be instantly overwhelmed with smoky earthiness that reminds her of October, someplace where the seasons actually change.

She thinks maybe she’s seen it on TV. Images of a forest full of dying fall hues, a campfire crackling and shooting embers into a crisp, clear night where you can actually see the stars. That top note of sparkling citrus.

 _Ben_.

She can taste him. Despite the chlorine in her nose and tang of soy sauce and fried noodles.

Ben’s sitting at the kitchen table, holding chopsticks with his face scrunched up, leaning away from Kaydel as she invades his space.

“Oh hey Rey-bear.” She smiles. “We picked up some Chinese if you want any.”

The kitchen counter is lined with more oyster pails and plastic containers than Rey’s ever seen. “Jesus, that’s a lot of food,” she mumbles as she begins looking through them, trying to decide what she wants.

“I know,” Kaydel says. “Ben insisted. Hungry much, babe? I never knew Alphas ate so much!”

 _Because they don’t_ , Rey doesn’t say. _Not unless they’re going into rut._

She grabs a pint of vegetable lo mein, turning around to lock eyes with Ben.

He’s staring at her, or into her it feels more like. It has a weight to it, a physicality. She feels penetrated from all the way across the room.

“I’ve just been really hungry lately,” he says lowly, darkly. “I’m sure Rey is too.”

Did he get extra food for her? A blush rises to her skin as she thinks, _How Alpha of him_.

Rey swallows, nodding, trying to clear away dangerous thoughts. “Thanks,” she says, using every ounce of willpower to rip her gaze away and walk out of the kitchen, practically sprinting up the stairs and into the safety of her room.

As she leans against the door, she closes her eyes and leans her head back, her chest heaving, her lips parted, her lungs gasping for breath as if she just ran a marathon.

 _A holdover from someplace primal_ , she remembers reading in her text book seventh grade. _You want Alphas to chase you. Best Alpha gets Omega_.

Images of Ben grabbing her and kissing her deeply, his tongue down her throat. Of him turning her around, one hand wrapped around her neck as the other slides down her stomach and into her jeans. With her eyes still closed, she runs her own hands down her body, leaning against the door as if it’s him. Imagines his plush lips upon the pounding vein in her neck, his teeth scraping her mating gland, his fingers pushing into her to make her ready for him.

Filthy, depraved, beautiful things.

She doesn’t even remember having dropped the lo mein, the noodles flying everywhere, the brown sauce staining the immaculate cream carpet.

*

Rey wakes up in a cold sweat.

Her tank top and cotton shorts are drenched. Her duvet cover has been kicked off.

The AC is on full blast, her nipples pebbled hard and goosebumps rising all over her body. She peels off her clothes and tosses them onto the floor.

Slides open the bottom drawer of her nightstand.

The Signature Thrusting Wolf greets her cheerily with its shiny gold ‘70s font. Rey thinks she might even be able to hear the porno groove music. She opens it and slides it out. It feels smooth and heavy and luxurious in her hands.

With the press of a button, it buzzes on, the tip thrusting up and down. She’s already wet, not remembering her dreams yet knowing they were about Ben somehow. They’re always about Ben.

His massive, muscled body over her. His haphazard black waves, sweaty strands sticking out. His back long and taut and covered in red scratches. His hard, thick cock pummeling her until she doesn’t remember anything, not any of these wounds, not even her last name.

_Ben._

_Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben._

Afterwards, flushed and slippery and blissed out, she opens her door and makes her way down the darkened hallway. She’s still naked, but it’s the middle of the night and the house is silent.

The water hisses out of the shower nozzle and onto the charcoal gray stone tile of the stand-in shower, gurgling down the drain. Rey stands under it, relishing in the coolness pattering upon her skin like rain. After a while, after she’s rinsed off the lather from Ben’s Old Spice Wolfthorn body wash, she turns the knob all the way to the coldest setting.

It doesn’t help. Not really. Thoughts of Ben fucking her in the shower are still filling her mind.

God, and her heat hasn’t even started yet.

After she dries off, she hangs the towel back up on the hook over the door and stares at herself in the fogged-up mirror. She’s skinny and an A-cup, but she’s tall and lean and tan. Sure, she doesn’t have curves and mermaid hair like Kaydel, but there must be some guy out there who would find her attractive. Who’d be into her.

Could Poe be?

 _No, he’s still hung up on Baz_ , she reminds herself.

 _And you’re hung up on Ben_ , the devil on her shoulder whispers back. _What does that matter?_

Part of her’s afraid of getting hurt. Growing attached to yet another man who doesn’t want her. Could she really separate sex and feelings?

She wonders if Ben can. If this thing with Kaydel is just a meaningless fling, or if it’s something more. She knows she should stop obsessing about it already, but why her? Why her best friend and worst enemy? Is this to get back at Rey or something? Or could it be he actually _likes_ her?

Rey closes her eyes.

Could he even love her someday?

Horrible flashes like a car accident of Ben with his arms around Kaydel, smiling, kissing, with a background of an aluminum Christmas tree or house party or hotel room with some glittering city dozens of stories beneath them. Their sweaty bodies writhing together in ecstasy. It’s sickening. Rey feels sick.

She clicks off the light. Opens the door.

—and runs right into a brick wall.

Not a brick wall.

_Ben._

His hands instinctively fly out to steady her, holding her by her biceps.

He’s close, so close. And Rey—

Rey is _very_ naked.

Rey is naked, pressed up against Ben.

His eyes are wide and dark, his lips are parted, and she’s pretty sure he’s not breathing.

She’s not breathing, either.

His eyes flick down. Down over her breasts. Maybe even lower.

Can he see her heart pounding? See the way it moves her ribcage?

Ben bows his head down, the wisps of his hair tickling her shoulder. His chest rises as he smells her neck, his lungs filling deeply. Her mating gland throbs in time with the throbbing between her legs.

She wonders what she smells like to him. Is it just as mouthwatering?

Rey leans her head to side, giving him better access. She feels the hot wetness of his tongue swiping up, sending shivers down her spine, wetness rushing out.

He must smell this, because suddenly his hands have moved, one pressing on her back and the other grabbing her ass, roughly pushing her closer against him, his teeth scraping her skin. She clamps around nothing.

“ _Alpha_ ,” she hears herself say, low and husky and full of thousands of years of desire.

A rush of cold air as Ben steps back. Turns away. She watches his back as it heaves, his hand running through his hair in an aggravated tick she’s seen a million times.

“Put some fucking clothes on,” he growls. And then he’s shoving past her into the bathroom and slamming the door in her face.

It shakes the doorframe, reverberating in her bones and causing her heart to drop into the pit of her stomach.

Rey does the walk of shame back to her room.

She ties her hair up in a high bun, the strands still damp from her shower.

She slips on a navy blue kimono with pink cherry blossoms, the silk feeling cool against her skin, which is now flushed more due to embarrassment than anything else.

She looks at her messy bed.

There’s no way she can go back to sleep now. The encounter with Ben has left her wired, but she’s too sad now to get off again.

After she rolls a joint, she slides open the window and screen, curling into herself on the window seat as she listens to crickets and stares up at the full moon, the black pits crackling and dragging as pale white light passes over it.

She touches her neck.

*

Time slows when Rey is stoned. It stretches out ahead, hazy and meaningless. It pushes her back into the past then propels her into the future, into the middle of dreams like scenes, like projected films flickering upon the walls.

But here, now—there’s the sound of the front door opening and closing. The click of the lock.

Murmuring.

Then footsteps up the carpeted steps, soft and slow and careful.

Ben’s door opens and closes. More murmuring. Definitely Kaydel.

Rey’s not sure how much more time passes. She starts counting seconds, but the pounding of her heart is throwing her off.

It starts off quiet, erratic, but it’s not long before the wooden headboard that Kaydel wants to replace so much begins pummeling against the thin wall separating the room, harder than Rey’s ever heard it before. It shakes the room. It shakes the whole house. She wonders if his side of the wall’s going to have dents in it.

Rey doesn’t move her bed away this time.

It must be the heat driving her mad. _It must be_ , because why else would she do this to herself?

Why else would she pull the vibrator out again and fuck herself in time to Ben’s thrusts, imagining it’s him fucking into her like he wants to bring the whole house down, like he wants everything to fall apart? She imagines the ceiling and walls cracking, plaster and drywall collapsing in clumps. The 1930s Spanish Revival colonial nothing but a pile of rubble.

Neighbors would slow down in their cars as they passed by, squinting through their sunglasses as they wondered what ever happened. There’d be rumors of an earthquake, even if no other house on the block was affected. Seismologists and other academics would scratch their collective heads. Children would whisper stories of the supernatural as they hurried past it with halloween bags. It’d become just as much of a legend as the Manson murders and ghostly apparitions of silver screen starlets haunting the Hollywood sign, mistaking the moonlight for stage light.

*

The pale blue light of dawn hangs over the city like a filter. Fog drifts across the hard, chilly ground, which permeates through Rey’s beat-up high-top Chucks. It’s strangely quiet. There’s not many cars at this hour, in the space between the crickets stopping but the birds not yet singing.

A coyote howls in the desolate foothills as Rey knocks on the door of Poe’s trailer.

 _Disappear here_ , she thinks.

When it swings opens, she finds Poe bleary-eyed, his hair messy, wearing nothing but dark gray boxer briefs.

She wonders what she looks like to him right now—the hood of her hoodie up, her eyes bloodshot with purple circles underneath, her lips bitten and chapped. How she smells to him, with Ben’s scent on her skin and her countless orgasms that blur the line between pleasure and pain.

He looks at her. She looks at him.

Without a word, he opens the door wider, just enough space for her and her duffel bag.


	4. Westerns and Widflowers

_Take an a-a-aphrodisiac, don't do nothing, just relax_  
_Your ha-ha-heart goes piddle-pat, take an a-a-aphrodisiac_

_If you want to fall in love with somebody_  
_Somebody that you're not in love with at all_

_“Aphrodisiac” by Bow Wow Wow_

* * *

Rey wakes to the smell of something delicious.

She’s lying in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, the blinds drawn with sunlight glowing hazily through them. The walls are wood-paneled, the sheets are white, but everything looks yellow in the late afternoon, in a room facing west.

 _Alpha_ , the tangled sheets scream out.

Amber, bourbon, spice, vanilla.

Poe.

And something else mouthwatering. Smoky, sizzling. Onions, peppers, steak.

Rey stretches out like a cat, the throbbing in between her legs ignored with the prospect of food. When she opens the door, the smells grow so intense, she doesn’t know what she wants more—to rip off Poe’s clothes or dig into the skillet while it’s still smoking.

The fold-out table with the plaid tablecloth has two place settings on it, complete with perfectly-folded napkins, forks, and empty cups. There’s a plate of tortillas and bowls filled with Spanish rice, salsa, sour cream, and guac resting in the middle… and a coffee tin with a few wildflowers in it.

Rey pulls out a chair and sits down. “Is this for me?”

Poe smiles sheepishly at her from over the stovetop. “Yeah,” he says, shrugging one shoulder as he goes back to stirring. “I mean, it’s no big deal.”

“That smells amazing,” she says while thinking, _It is a big deal._

He turns off the burner, then carries the cast iron skillet over and places it down on a wooden cutting board. “What did you want to drink?”

“Um…” Rey thinks. “Water’s fine.”

Poe takes her glass and fills it from the Brita in the fridge, but grabs a beer for himself.

“Actually, can I have one?”

“It’s a pilsner,” he warns as he opens it with the bottle opener mounted to the wall. Something about the action—the smooth, sure way he does it, the snap of his wrist, the metal cap flying down—turns her on and she doesn’t even know why. “6% APV.”

“I _think_ I can handle it,” she says teasingly.

Poe opens her one too, and then he’s sitting down across from her, jerking his chair forward a few times. “Hope you’re hungry.”

“Famished,” she says, already piling everything into a tortilla. “I still can’t believe you made all this.”

“I know Omegas gotta eat. For… well, you know.”

And there it is. The elephant in the room—or maybe it’s the wolf. The legend of how Alphas and Omegas came to be, descended from some variant long extinct. Shape-shifters once, now their only form is human, or so the story goes. The animal within them needs to eat to fuck as much as they’ll be doing, only they’ll do so civilized, with silverware and tablecloths.

Rey stares at the wildflowers as she chews.

*

Poe washes the dishes and Rey dries them.

It’s kind of nice, how domestic it all is. And weird.

They’ve only hung out a few times, and it was always with Ben. But after Rey messed up her suppressant schedule two years ago and went into heat, after she crawled naked into Ben’s bed and begged him to fuck her, after he rejected her and went and got Leia, after he started leaving rooms just as she was entering them, after they became strangers— _worse_ than strangers, because they can never start from the beginning—

Well, Rey didn’t see much of Poe anymore.

He was still Ben’s best friend. She knew this because she would see them hanging around school together, in the halls and in the parking lot, smoking joints in Ben’s black 1972 Camaro in between classes.

Even after Ben started dating Bazine, she still saw Poe around, albeit far less. He always seemed to hang back, quiet and distracted. Looking around the crowded halls for someone, though she never knew who. Maybe it was just to avoid looking at his best friend and his ex-girlfriend together.

Once or twice, she even caught his eye when she was at her locker. An understanding passed, a conversation without words. Like two comrades in front of a firing squad.

Rey can read him now. But it has nothing to do with his body language. If anything, he’s keeping his distance, waiting for her to make the first move. It’s so very… _un-Alpha_ of him. If he didn’t so clearly smell like one, she’d have serious doubts about his designation.

There might be two and half feet separating them, but his scent is spiking, filling the space in between them.

As Poe takes the last dish from her and puts it on the top shelf of a cabinet, his shirt rides up, revealing a sliver of tanned skin above his low-slung black jeans.

Rey reaches out and touches him there. Her palm drifts up his skin still warm from the sun.

The room blurs as Rey finds her back pressed hard against the counter, the length of Poe’s body against hers, his tongue hot on her neck.

She moans.

“Tell me you want this,” he mumbles against her skin. “I won’t do this unless you want it.”

Does she?

Rey isn’t sure. She knows she _needs_ it. She knows heats can be unbearable, and a breakthrough heat the worst of them all. She knows she has her vibrator in the bottom drawer in the nightstand in her room, but she’s so sick of going through this alone, of being alone.

And this feels good. It does. Poe is hot and he smells good and he’s clean and respectful and nice, and what more could she ask for?

No, he’s not Ben. But she needs to get that out of her head. She needs to stop comparing every boy—every man—to him. And it’s not fair to Poe.

She can learn to prefer dark brown eyes to brown ones flecked with green. She can learn to prefer short black hair to long waves. Olive skin to paleness dotted with freckles like constellations.

She can learn to love him, maybe.

“Yes,” she finally says, not really giving him what he asked for, but meaning it all the same.

*

There’s no foreplay. No confessions of love, of longing, whispered across skin. Sonnets will not be written about this.

When Rey climbs on top of Poe and slides his cock inside her, it’s a bit of a burn, a stretch, but otherwise it’s uneventful. It’s disappointing really, how much of a build-up sex is until you finally have it.

Did Ben feel this way when he lost his virginity? Was it to Bazine or one of his earlier girlfriends?

Did he love her… whoever she was?

“You feel so good,” Poe moans. “Fuck, Rey.”

It does feel good. It stops the heat cramps and hits a spot deep inside her. But it’s just so… ordinary. Mechanical. A memory of riding a metal pony in the atrium of a supermarket at the age of five flashes through her mind.

It’s tricky, staying on top of him and finding a rhythm that works for them both. He slides out several times, his cock hot and slick with her wetness, smearing it all over her thighs. But then he’s slipping it back in, holding her hips and helping her. She’s a little jerky and all over the place, and it’s awkward as hell, but he has the class not to say anything. And the way his mouth is open and his eyes are screwed shut, she thinks maybe he doesn’t even notice.

They find a rhythm. Back and forth, in and out.

Poe’s hands are gripping her hips even harder now, slamming her down on him as he fucks up into her, and _oh_ that’s better. Deeper, harder, faster. Pounding that spot in a way that’s not quite pleasurable by itself, but there’s pleasure in the pain.

Rey thinks maybe she’s a masochist.

The light is getting darker in the room as she continues to ride him, into the literal sunset, and this notion strikes her as so funny she begins to laugh. Thankfully Poe doesn’t seem to be offended, too wrapped up in chasing his climax, enjoying the view of his cock disappearing inside her. She notices he stares at that or her bouncing tits more than he looks at her face, but she’s not really offended, either. It is what it is.

Something quickly gains momentum. It rises and rises like a tide until it crashes over her, and then she’s lost to it, pulled out to sea, no longer caring about the wreckage left behind.

*

Afterwards, Poe holds her.

She thinks maybe he’d hold her even if they weren't stuck together, even if he didn't have to.

He’s a nice guy.

He isn’t Ben.

Would Ben hold her?

 _You’ll never know,_ her heart reminds her. _And you’re a piece of shit for thinking about another man while in bed with another._

But at least she didn’t imagine Ben as she was fucking Poe.

…Did Poe imagine she was Baz?

It occurs to Rey she doesn’t even care if he did.

They’re both covered in a sheen of sweat, not only from sex but the stuffiness of the room in 86 degree heat.

“Don’t you have an AC?” She grimaces as their skin sticks together.

“It broke. Sorry.” A few seconds pass. “Uh, Rey?”

“Hm?”

“You… you’re on protection, right?”

Rey nods. “I’ve been on the pill since sophomore year,” she says. “Helps with my periods.”

Poe looks visibly relieved. She can’t blame him. She’s in high school, he’s going off to college. He’s got a future ahead of him, away from this trailer park. And while she might not have a future as bright or promising, she doesn’t want to be tied down to him. Or anyone.

Would she feel the same if it were Ben inside of her?

She would like to think she isn’t _anything_ like Kaydel, so pathetically desperate to hold onto him that it’s actually kind of sad.

God, she hopes Kaydel doesn’t get pregnant. Rey will actually move out. She doesn’t care where she’ll go. She’ll sleep on a fucking park bench. The beach. She’ll find a cave, eating fish she catches and roasts over a fire. She’ll draw on the walls, and a thousand years from now—after some nuclear war has annihilated the planet and humans rise from their underground cities—some explorer will find them and try to decipher their meanings. Photos will hang on lighted walls in museums. Textbooks will be written about it.

“Are you okay?” Poe asks.

“Yeah.”

The next ten minutes pass in silence as they wait for his knot to go down. The second it does, they’re extracting themselves, Poe turning on the fan while Rey stares up at a crack in the ceiling.

She doesn’t bother covering herself or getting up to go take a shower. After all, who knows when the need will strike again. Minutes, hours—it’s all the same.

She feels sated. Sleepy. It’s definitely a better feeling than the post-orgasm of a sex toy while in heat. Usually she’d only find relief for minutes at most, but right now, she’s all heavy limbs and sticky skin, her stomach full of food and her cunt full of cum. She can feel it leaking out of her.

 _Alpha will provide_ , her ancient wolf chants.

 _Shut up_ , she replies.

*

It’s night. The only light is coming from passing headlights as they blaze white into the room, illuminate skin, then fade away.

Rey’s on her hands and knees, Poe fucking her from behind doggie-style. The bed is shaking, the mattress springs squeaking, and this time— _this time_ —she’s imagining it’s Ben. It’s easier this way, not seeing Poe’s face or body. Just the feeling of his hands gripping her hips and his cock pummeling in and out and in and out and in and out.

God, she can almost smell him.

Campfires, woods, petrichor, citrus.

The scent fills her nose, her lungs. As deep as the cock fucking her.

“What the _fuck_ is this…?”

Rey is suddenly empty and cold. She falls down on the bed, a blur of something behind her.

_Ben._

_Ben is here._

Ben is here, with his hand wrapped around Poe’s throat, pushing him against the wall. A hazy light pours into the room from the hall from where he must have turned it on.

The sight of two Alphas in the same space, the air thick with sex, sends jolts shooting down Rey’s spine over and over. The Omega in her wants her to spread her legs for them both.

The teenaged girl in her, however, grabs the twisted sheet and wraps it clumsily around herself. “What the hell, Ben?!”

He doesn’t seem to hear her. He’s glaring at Poe, who’s trying his best to break free. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“She’s in heat,” Poe defends. “As if you couldn’t tell.”

“So that gives you permission to fuck her?” Ben seethes. “Are you a fucking animal?”

Rey bristles. “The only permission Poe needed was _mine_. Which he got.”

“You’re in heat, Rey,” Ben says, not looking at her. “You’re not in your right mind.”

“Fuck you,” she says, but really meaning _fuck me_.

“What are you even doing here?” asks Poe.

“I came by to see my _best friend_. You know, the one who’s been avoiding me all summer. The one who never returns my fucking calls, the one—”

Poe laughs. Rey thinks it’s dangerous, what he’s doing. Like taunting a wild beast in a cage at the zoo. “Best friends, right. Just admit you want weed and get the fuck out.”

Ben ignores him, tightening his grip around his throat. “ _Why her?_ ”

“I could ask the same of you.”

It’s an old-fashioned stand-off, right out of a grainy technicolor spaghetti Western on a 1950s TV screen. Ben, the outlaw gunslinger, the Man in Black. And Poe, the cowboy with a heart of gold. Tumbleweeds and sand blow by. A crow caws, watching from the telephone wires.

Ben laughs. A low, harsh sound. “Of course. This is about Baz.”

Poe narrows his eyes. “This has nothing to do with _her_ or you. Kindly get the fuck out.”

Ben doesn’t move.

“Rey?” Poe calls out. “Call the police. Ben’s trespassing.”

Rey’s not sure what to do. What can she do? She doesn’t want Ben to go to jail. But she doesn’t want Poe hurt, either.

“Ben,” she finally says, moving closer to him. She sees his back tense even more, not knowing that was even possible. “You know how hard it is to go through ruts alone. I chose this. I chose Poe.”

Ben turns his head to the side, though he’s still not looking at her. His chest is heaving, the corded muscles in his arms strained. “You’re safe?”

“Of course she’s fucking safe,” Poe mutters.

“Yes,” Rey replies. “Go home.” He still doesn't move, and now something bitter is rising up from her stomach, something acrid and venomous. “Go back to fucking Kaydel. Fucking people is what you’re best at, after all. Or should I say…”—she tilts her head—“…fucking people over?”

A rush of air escapes Ben like he’s been punched in the stomach.

He releases Poe, then steps back widely, running a hand through his waves several times.

As Poe rubs his neck, Rey notices his cock is still hard, jutting out, shiny with her wetness. She quickly averts her eyes, thankful the darkness is hiding her blush.

How is he still hard? Is this because he’s going into rut too? Or did the choking… _excite_ him?

…Did Ben?

It occurs to Rey there’s not a lot she knows about Poe. But then again, there’s not a whole lot he knows about her, either.

Ben looks at Rey.

It’s a long look, but she’s not sure what it means. It’s like a foreign language she doesn’t understand. And no matter how hard she tries, she can’t learn it, can’t make sense of it. All she wants to do is reach out and touch him. Read his skin like braille.

But he’s turning away now, back out the door in the dim hall with the frosted light that has gnats circling it. She hears his boots stomping into the living room. A clatter. And then he’s swinging open the door with way more force than necessary. It clangs against the trailer, and seconds later there’s headlights shining into the room, the sound of peeling out, then it all fades away. Poe’s behind her, one hand squeezing her breasts and the other moving down her stomach, parting her folds, finding her even wetter now at the heady smell of two competing Alphas, and then he’s pushing her forward, down onto the bed, slipping his cock inside her again, the lights coming and going, the tides rising and falling, and she’s lost.

*

Hours later, when she gets up and goes into the kitchen to get some water, she notices the coffee tin is on the floor, the water soaking into the carpet, the purple and yellow wildflowers spread out everywhere. Rey picks one up, the petals crushed and falling off, like it had been ground underneath a boot.


	5. An Education

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to @starryalice for this dreamy moodboard. 💕

_I dreamt about you nearly every night this week_   
_How many secrets can you keep?_   
_'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat_   
_Until I fall asleep_

_Maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new_

_“Do I Wanna Know?” by the Arctic Monkeys_

* * *

The first week of August brings about a heatwave just as Rey’s heat ends.

For once, neither of them are covered in a sheen of sweat. The room is nice and cool, the new air conditioner Rey bought off Amazon humming in the windowsill. He had fought her on it, of course, but Rey had insisted she needed it or else she’d die. And she thinks she really might have, because being with Poe in 90-degree heat, in a heat mania, hardly ever leaving the room was beginning to feel extremely surreal. She wonders sometimes if his room is purgatory. If the door will open if she tries to leave, or if there’s a brick wall behind it and _plot twist_ you’re here forever.

She’s been here over a week now, practically living with him. But ever since her heat waned three days ago, they haven’t had sex once. Not that they talk about it, but Rey doesn’t mind. She’s freshly showered, her skin is cool, the sheets are clean. She’s not exactly happy, but she’s not unhappy, either. It’s a comfortable sort of melancholia. The moment when one stops swimming. _Amor fati_ —an acceptance, even love, of one’s fate.

Rey looks over at Poe, at the kaleidoscope flickers drifting across his skin. They’re lying on his bed in the dark, on the sheets they don’t fuck on, watching _Pierrot le fou_. Rey has taken it upon herself to properly educate him on all things film-related after seeing his pitiful DVD collection, just like Ben used to do for her.

“ _Look at the sea, the waves, the sky,_ ” Ferdinand tells his lover Marianne as they run away together in a convertible, the French countryside blurring past them. _“Life might be sad, but it’s always beautiful._ ”

Rey tries not to think about the first time she watched this with Ben on the couch in the living room two and a half years ago. He’d introduced her to so many of what he pointedly called _films_ , not _movies_ —old Hollywood, Italian Neo-Realism, French New Wave. Monochrome and Technicolor classics. Modern classics, too. He bought Criterion Collection editions the way some junkies buy coke.

She tries not to think about how she’d always glance over at Ben whenever they watched films together, only to find he was already looking at her. He was always doing that during her education—studying her, gauging her reactions during certain scenes. There was always some untouchable part of him, some cool sophistication that she could never reach, could never pretend to match. Oh how many times she’s wondered what _else_ he could teach her.

She tries not to think about a lot of things.

Poe hands her the joint without looking at her. She can’t tell if he’s into it or if he’s bored. But he's the type to be too polite to tell her if he was. The French washes over her as she continues to stare.

How is it watching a movie feels more like a betrayal than actually having sex with someone else?

“Hey Poe?”

“Mm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Did you ever…” Rey bites her lip. “…date anyone else but Bazine?”

“Yeah, Jess, for like a year. But you knew that already.”

“Oh, right. I must have forgotten.”

Poe picks up the remote and hits pause. “Why don't you ask what you really want to ask?”

Rey doesn’t know if it’s because they’d had sex so many times now that she’s lost count, or if his shit suppressants mean he’s more adept at reading her. Either way, she doesn’t like it.

“Did you ever hook up with Ben?” she finally blurts out, not really knowing if she wants the answer.

“Kind of.” He shrugs. “I had a threesome with him and Baz once.”

Rey thought she was beyond being shocked anymore, a product of her disaffected generation. Not to mention she’s incredibly stoned. But fuck he’s managed to do it.

“It was Baz’s idea, back when we were still dating. In hindsight, I guess that should have been a pretty big warning sign.”

“So you… and Baz… _and Ben_ …”

“Well, no… not exactly. It was more like, _Baz and Ben_. And me, watching my girlfriend and my best friend fuck right in front of me. In my bed.”

Rey has a sudden and powerful urge to burn this mattress. “Fuck, Poe. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I hadn’t agreed to it. Stupidly.”

“So you never…”

“…fucked Ben?” Poe raises an eyebrow, giving her a knowing look. “No.”

“You never wanted to?”

“I don’t know. Never really thought about it before.”

Rey knows he’s lying, and it has nothing to do with his suppressants or hers. He’s just not that good of a liar. But for all the times they’ve had sex now, all the hours spent talking or just watching Netflix together, why won’t he be honest with her? Aren’t they kind of friends?

Or have they somehow slipped into dating? Can that happen without talking about it?

After all, when you’re sleeping together (sexually and literally— _especially_ literally), and eating together, and you agree to watch movies with subtitles even though your DVD collection contains _Leprechaun In The Hood_ and _Killer Klowns from Outer Space_ , then maybe there’s something more there than friendship.

Rey looks over at Poe again, his eyes slightly narrowed at the screen, this film once again resumed. She wonders what bothered him more—seeing Bazine with Ben, or Ben with Bazine. Who, and what, he really longs for. What he thinks about late at night. He’s suddenly a stranger to her now, more shadow than light, and it occurs to her then: Does anyone really know anyone else?

He’s a good guy, that she knows. He’ll make someone really happy someday. They’ll lie in bed and watch movies together and neither of them will think about someone else.

*

Another week passes before Rey finally goes home.

She knows she has to, that it’s time. She doesn’t know how she knows this exactly. It’s an inexplicable feeling, a restlessness building up under the skin like an itch you can’t scratch. That’s when you know you’ve stayed somewhere too long.

Cicadas reach a crescendo in the trees as Rey pulls up the driveway to the 1930s Spanish Colonial. The sun is high in the sky, blinding off the white stucco walls, baking the red clay-tiled roof.

The first thing Rey does is throw all the clothes in her duffel bag into the washing machine in the basement. They reek of sweat and Poe, and while she’s pettily tempted to wear his scent to piss off Ben, even _she’s_ sick of it by now.

As she changes into her black bikini in her room, she listens for any sound through the wall, but there’s nothing.

The pool calls to her, the waves gently swaying, glittering. She’s so desperate to swim that she doesn’t even notice Kaydel lounging in the chair underneath the umbrella until she calls out “Rey-bear!”

“Oh, hey,” Rey says, clutching her beach towel. “What’s up?”

“Haven’t seen you around much lately.”

“Yeah. Had my heat.” Then, just because she’s still a little salty: “You know how it is.”

Kaydel just stares at her. Her eyes are obscured behind her red heart-shaped sunglasses, but Rey knows they’re narrowed.

Rey turns back around, her bare feet scorched by the sun beating down on the stone as she pads her way over to the shallow end. As she descends the steps into the pool, the cool water kisses her skin, raising goosebumps all over her body, distorting her limbs in waves of pale blue.

God, she’s missed this. If only Kaydel weren’t around.

“So what, do you like, live here now?” Rey asks as she wades further in, up to her shoulders.

From her peripheral, she watches as Kaydel stands up, pulling off her sunglasses and tank top and shimmying out of her denim shorts, her curvy golden body clad in a red bikini like a Victoria’s Secret swimsuit model. Rey tries not to look at her. It’s not that she’s attracted to her, but with someone as beautiful as Kaydel, it’s hard not to look.

A wave of water suddenly splashes Rey, the chlorine singing her eyes and nose. When Kaydel emerges from her cannonball jump, her blonde hair is slicked back, rivulets of water running down her skin. She splashes Rey purposefully this time.

“So I heard you were at Poe’s,” Kaydel says as Rey rubs at her eyes, treading water around her like a shark, circling.

“You heard that from Ben?”

“Of course.”

“And what about it?”

“Rey-bear!” Kaydel shrieks. “You finally lost your virginity and you weren’t going to tell your best friend?!” She splashes her again.

“It’s no big deal. It’s just sex.”

“Maybe when it’s someone you don’t care about.”

“I care about Poe.”

“I couldn’t believe it when Ben told me.” “You couldn’t believe he’d sleep with me?”

“It’s just… he’s pretty popular. And hot.” Kaydel shrugs. “But I guess that’s the hormones for you.”

“And you don’t think it’s just hormones between you and Ben?” Rey counters.

“That’s totally different. How could Poe, an _Alpha_ , resist an Omega in heat? I mean, he’d probably fuck _any_ Omega in heat, even if they were morbidly obese and covered in warts.” She starts giggling. “He’d probably fuck Joan the lunch lady.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rey says as coldly as she can. “And you never will. No amount of shoving inflatable knots up your cunt will change that.”

Kaydel narrows her eyes, but then she’s smiling saccharinely-sweet. “No, I guess you’re right. After all, you’ve been in heat how many times now and Ben’s never looked twice at you.”

As Rey stares at Kaydel, she wonders how many years in prison she’d get for drowning her. Would she be charged as a minor or an adult? “He’s my cousin, you freak.”

“I know, I’m just saying. So maybe Poe really _is_ into you. Maybe we can double date!”

“I’d rather gouge out my eyes with chopsticks. Thanks anyway.”

“And I thought I was the dramatic one.” Kaydel lifts herself out of the water, sitting on the edge of the pool. Something brown and blotchy catches Rey's eye.

“What the fuck is that?”

“What? Oh, nothing.” Kaydel shrugs, draining her long hair of excess water. “Things got a little rough when Ben was in rut.”

“ _Ben_ did that to you?”

“You should see what I did to him.” She winks. “Scratches all down his back. I don’t think either of us could walk for a few days after.”

A few moments pass in silence as Rey stares at the sun glinting on the waves, trying to blind herself of the mental image.

“So are you guys, like, dating now?” Rey can’t help herself from asking. She hopes she sounds casual about it.

“I don’t know. We haven’t really talked about it. Or done much of talking I guess. I actually haven’t seen him the past few days… I guess Hux and Phasma are back or whatever.”

“So _that’s_ why you’re hanging around an empty house.”

Kaydel gives her a look. “I can’t be waiting for you? Maybe I missed my bestie.”

Rey doesn’t say anything. The cicadas pulse in the thickets.

“So I heard Mitaka is throwing a party tonight, if you want to go,” Kaydel continues. “His house is fucking awesome. You know his dad is a producer for MGM, and he’s like never home, and his mom is in rehab for the eighth—”

“I don’t know. I should probably spend some quality family time with Leia or something. She’s probably been wondering where I’ve been.”

For a second there, Rey could have sworn Kaydel looked kind of sad. But then she’s going on about how Jess is more fun anyway, and if Poe could get them any Molly, and how she could have _sworn_ she saw one of the Jonas brothers at a juice bar on Melrose, and Rey just lets it wash over her the way the waves do as she floats on her back, her eyes closed, wishing she were drifting away in the Pacific.

*

Dusk has always been Rey’s favorite time of day, even if it means the moths come out.

Leia’s at the grill in the corner of paradise in the backyard, wearing a kitschy 1950s apron over her tailored business suit as she flips burgers over smoldering charcoals. Smoke rises, the smell of charred meat mingling with the smell of damp earth and freshly-mowed grass.

The pool is glowing aquamarine with the underwater lights as string lights burn a warm yellow in the potted plants and trees. Crickets chirp in them as Rey stares up at the outline of the waning moon hanging ghostly in the dusty periwinkle sky, avoiding the setting sun like an ex-lover.

Leia hands Rey a paper plate with a cheeseburger and potato chips on it. “So you were safe?”

“Of course.”

Leia nods. “Okay, good. When Ben told me—”

“God,” Rey groans. “Is he going around telling everyone? I don’t know why he can’t just mind his own business.”

“He was worried about you. You’re like a sister to him.” Leia smiles warmly. “Just like you’re a daughter to me.”

Rey smiles back, but she’s suddenly lost her appetite. She takes a bite of one of the chips anyway, at least giving the appearance of eating, that everything is fine, that she’s fine. That she totally doesn't care if her best friend is sort of dating the man she’s sort of in love with. Or that he’ll never see her as anything more than an annoying little sister. It doesn’t matter that he’ll be on the other side of the country in two weeks, or that he’ll probably meet some Blue Blood heiress there and they’ll go to yacht parties and laugh about things like the economy over their mojitos on wide Hampton lawns. So what if he forgets her. He already has.

“So where is the prodigal son tonight?” Rey wonders as she sits down on the wicker sofa, her legs crossed underneath her, the paper plate on her lap.

Leia sits down next to her. “I believe he went to a party at one of his friend’s. I told him I’d save him a burger in the fridge.”

Rey nods.

A few minutes pass as Leia slowly eats, scrolling through the email on her phone. “You sure you were alright? With that young man?”

A surge of something rises within Rey. She realizes it’s the truth. All her feelings—about Poe, how she doesn’t know how she feels about him exactly, that maybe she could like him if she gave herself the chance. About Kaydel and how she feels like she sold her soul for popularity, even though she’s never felt more alone. About Rose and how much she misses her. About how much she misses Han. And Ben. Most of all, Ben.

“Jesus,” Leia mutters at her glowing screen. “How many times do I have to tell that harebrained intern not to schedule two meetings at the same time?”

Rey throws her dinner away, but Leia doesn’t notice.

*

Rey’s sitting on the reddish clay tile outside her bedroom window, her legs pulled up, headphones wrapped around her messy hair and Ben’s black hoodie hanging off her body. She’d found it in the dryer downstairs, and even though it now smells like Gain instead of woods and campfires and petrichor, it’s still something of him. The closest she’ll ever come.

The Arctic Monkeys comes on. A cloud of smoke Rey exhales drifts up and joins the smog hanging across LA.

Maybe things aren’t so bad. Maybe Rey can pick her grades up, join an extracurricular or two. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Maybe she can go to Brown next year, too. After all, Leia is the governor of California, and the Nabierre family was Hollywood royalty during the 1930s and ‘40s. But no, Rey wants to get admitted on her own merit. And if it doesn’t happen… well, there’s always someplace else. Somewhere far away from here.

Maybe she doesn’t even have to go to college. Maybe she can travel, see the world. She wants to drink pints in a Dublin pub, get soaked in the London rain, drink coffee in a Parisian cafe. She wants to photograph everything beautiful. She wants to have intellectual, philosophical arguments with interesting people. She wants to know what it’s like to be loved, or at least passionately desired, to have a man so consumed by her she’s turned into a character or song. She wants to be where things happen. She wants to feel alive.

She wants to feel the way she does late at night, right before she drifts off, her fantasies of a better life playing behind her eyelids. She’s so full of want, she thinks sometimes she’ll die from it. It's a beautiful but tragic disease, like consumption in the 1920s, coughing drops of blood into a handkerchief.

 _Ben_.

Even if Rey couldn't smell him, she’d know he was behind her. She’s attuned to his very presence like a seismograph detecting an earthquake from miles away.

He crawls out of the open window and sits down on the tile next to her. “Comfortable,” he drawls as he reaches over and slips her joint out of her hand. Their fingers brush for half a second.

“So how was the party?” Rey pulls her phone out of the hoodie pocket to pause the music.

“Don’t,” he says. “I like it.”

Rey looks up at him. A few seconds pass as they stare at one another, but then he’s looking away at something she can’t see. She unplugs the headphones so that the music croons out of the tiny speaker and into the night.

There’s a hint of a smile on his lips. “You really like my hoodie, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s way more comfortable than mine,” she lies as she goes to unzip it.

Ben places her hand over hers, stopping her. “Keep it.”

“Are you sure?”

“It looks better on you anyway.”

“Thanks.”

Ben relights the joint, then inhales deeply before passing it back to her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, after a while.

“What?”

“I’m sorry. For, you know… what happened at Poe’s. I shouldn’t have gone there.”

Rey shrugs. “It’s not like you knew I was there.”

“Oh, but I did.” He laughs humorlessly as he continues to stare out into the distance. “After you said you might go over there, I mean… where else would you be?”

“Well, like Leia said, you wanted to make sure I was safe. So thanks, I guess.”

“That wasn’t why.” It was so quiet, Rey almost missed it.

“What?”

Ben finally looks at her. “That wasn’t why,” he repeats, louder this time but still barely above a whisper.

“Then why?”

A few more moments pass.

“Honestly?”

Rey nods.

“I felt… this strange feeling coming over me. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone else touching you. It drove me crazy. It felt like I was being ripped apart.”

Rey’s heart sinks. “Oh. You scented me, remember? That’s all it was.” She shrugs. “Stupid biology making you think I was yours.”

Ben nods, looking down. “Yeah, you must be right. I’m sorry about that, too.”

“It happens.”

The song ends. Rey hits replay. She’s never minded listening to the same song on repeat. Just like how Ben can watch the same films over and over and never grow sick of them.

“So how was the party?” she tries again.

“Same old. I’m over it, to be honest.”

“Did you go with Kaydel?”

Ben gives her a strange look. “No.”

“Oh, really? Why not?”

“I know she’s your best friend but,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair, “she’s really, _really_ fucking annoying.”

Rey bursts out laughing. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”

“I don’t know how you’ve stayed friends with her all these years.”

“I don’t know how you fucked her,” Rey retorts, and suddenly—just like that—the mood shifts and the air grows heavier around them.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says. “I didn’t think it would be so… weird, or whatever.”

Rey shrugs in feigned nonchalance. “I don’t care.”

They pass the joint back and forth in silence.

“Can I ask you something?” Ben says, peering at her like she’s a dragonfly under glass, something vaguely interesting and academic.

Rey shrugs.

“You said something that night. About how you chose Poe. Is that true?”

“Yeah,” Rey says, wondering where he’s going with this.

“So… what happened two years ago…”

Rey’s heart is speeding up.

“…you knew what you were doing then?”

Rey screws her eyes shut. Nods.

She hears Ben sigh heavily next to her. “Fuck, Rey. _Fuck_.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Rey, look at me.”

Like that’s going to happen. She should have lied. She should have said she wasn't in control then, but now she is, and why did she have to pick right now of all times to be honest? It’s too early to blame it on the madness of the Santa Ana winds. And it’s not like she’s really that stoned.

“Rey. _Look at me_.” An Alpha command. One she can resist—if she really wanted to.

Rey looks at Ben.

“Did you…” His lips puff out in that quirk of his. “ _You wanted me?_ ”

Rey nods again, because fuck it, she’s already all in now.

Ben’s shaking his head, as if he can’t believe it. “But you had told Leia it was just your heat.”

“What?”

“After it had ended, when you were talking one night in the kitchen… I overheard you. You said it was just your heat. That you weren’t in your right mind. That you didn’t—”

“Like I was going to tell your mom—my _aunt_ —‘Oh yeah, I totally wanted to fuck your son…’”

Ben inhales sharply. “And now?”

“And now what?”

Ben’s gaze is dark, piercing. He looks down at her lips. “How do you feel now?”

“Does it matter?” she whispers.

Ben surges forward, his lips upon hers. But her brain is short-circuiting, and before she realizes what’s happening, before she can react, he’s pulling away.

It’s not fair. It wasn’t even a real taste.

“We can’t,” he says, his voice low.

“I know.” But then: “Why not?”

Rey watches as his Adam’s apple bobs. There’s freckles on his neck, going down the v-neck of his shirt. They’re close, so close. Millimeters away. He could kiss her again. She could kiss him back this time. Open mouth, with tongue, hands in his hair—

“You know why.”

“But—”

“We should go inside.” He’s not looking at her, and Rey feels the knot of whatever tie had been pulling them together slip, undoing itself, the moment over. “It’s late.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah, me neither. Did you want to…”—he sighs heavily—“I don’t know, watch something?”

Rey nods. It’s not a confession of love, it’s not mind-blowing sex, but it’s something.

*

They watch _Y tu mamá también_ on the widescreen TV in his room, the lights off as it should be, as he taught her.

The door to Ben’s bedroom is closed. This is understandable, as neither of them want to wake Leia. What Rey’s confused about is why he locked it. She tells herself it’s just out of habit, even if it sends a thrill down her spine every time she thinks about it.

They’re sitting on his bed close, so close, his arm touching hers, his leg touching hers, body heat seeping through their clothes. Rey is finding it hard to focus on the scenes, and not just because she’s stoned and buzzed off the red wine they snuck from Leia’s wine cabinet. They don’t bother with glasses—they just take turns passing the dark green bottle back and forth, beads of it dripping down their mouths, staining their lips red, turning their tongues blackcurrant sweet.

It feels like no one’s awake in the entire world. No one but them.

Rey’s limbs are loose, the warmth from the wine spreading in her veins, pooling low in her belly. It makes her want to say things she’d normally never say, do things she’s always wanted to do.

Whenever a sex scene comes on, something in the air in between them electrifies, sizzling like a snare, building up to something that has yet to crash. God, Rey wishes it would crash.

“I wish it had been you,” she confesses, her eyes on the screen, hoping he knows what she means.

She feels Ben turn to her, his eyes burning on her face, her lips.

A few minutes pass before she hears him say, “I wish it had been me, too.”


	6. Omens

_Oh, it should've been_  
_Could've been worse than you would ever know_  
_Well, you told me about nowhere_  
_Well, it sounds like someplace I'd like to go_

_"Dashboard" by Modest Mouse_

* * *

Even by Californian standards, Rey’s parents were hippies.

Her dad still is, living in a commune in Oregon where he grows his own food and dresses like The Dude from _The Big Lebowski_. Yet she uses the past tense when referring to him, because while he’s not exactly dead, he might as well be. _He’s gone off to live on a farm_ , she’d often tell classmates, as if he was a goldfish or the family dog. _It’s not a lie_ , she’d shrug innocently at Leia in the parent-teacher conferences.

Rey’s earliest memories are of standing barefoot in the dirt at a fold-up table, selling jewelry hand-made by Mara and lemonade mixed from a powder. Of bright slivers of sunlight in the backseat of a 1980s station wagon, the tan leather scuffed and ripped, everything they owned piled in the back. Of being dragged into whatever religion her parents were into that month—standing, sitting, kneeling on scabby knees in everything from ornate Gothic-revival Catholic churches to modernist evangelical ones to Jewish and Hindu temples. She’s had oil anointed upon her head and red Kabbalah strings tied around her wrists. Burnt coffee and stale Entenmann’s donuts in countless basements. She thinks maybe they’d even joined a cult once.

Out of all the polaroid memories, Rey’s favorites are those of her mother, with her auburn hair glowing like fire when it caught the light. The background is always a kitchen or garden, details popping out like flowers on a sundress or her fingers wrapped around the spiral cord of a phone mounted to the wall. Other details are hazy like a lens flare, a white streak of light over her face.

Rey doesn’t have any photos left of her. Her parents’ wedding was an elopement in a courthouse in Texas without any family present, and all other drugstore disposable-camera photos from over the years have disappeared. Luke gave boxes and boxes of their possessions away after the accident, burrowing further into his philosophy that all attachment leads to suffering. Which apparently included his daughter.

Rey’s kind of New Age-y herself, in a millennial way. She meditates, if you can call zoning out to music while stoned “meditation.” She’s taken a few Ashtanga yoga classes with Kaydel, even if Diego, the hipster instructor with the man-bun, was the main draw. She burns incense to mask the smell of weed and Novena candles because they’re pretty. There’s a pink Himalayan salt lamp glowing on her dresser.

She also has a deck of Tarot cards, which are currently spread out on her flowery bedspread as she sits cross-legged on her bed.

Death. The Tower. The Moon. The Hermit, reversed. The Lovers, reversed.

Rey stares at them as she rolls a strawberry-flavored blunt, some bits of weed spilling out on the worn paperback copy of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ , the summer reading she has yet to do for AP English.

She’s never believed in much. She’s way too jaded to believe in karma, and too much of an existential nihilist to believe in any inherent meaning in the universe. But she does believe that just when one thing seems to be going right, something else has to fall apart.

*

It begins with a bad omen.

When Rey goes to swim one afternoon, she finds a baby bird struggling in the pool. She yells for Ben then swoops it out with the net, and together they put it in a shoebox stuffed with one of his softest shirts. But as soon as she begins dialing local vets and wildlife rehabilitation centers, Ben tells her it’s passed away. It’s all she can think about. She doesn't even feel like swimming anymore, the small ribbon of blood in the aquamarine water haunting her. Ben rubs his hands down her arms and pulls her into his room, where they spend the entire day watching films, only pausing to smoke and order pizza.

They’re halfway through _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ , a three-hour film about a Czech surgeon named Tomas who’s torn between two women—between infidelity and fidelity, lightness and weight—when Rey starts to wonder if Ben’s been purposefully picking erotic films. Is this a game of chicken, waiting to see who snaps first?

Rey looks over at him.

Ben, as if he could sense her eyes on him, turns to look at her.

Rey looks back at the screen. So does he.

Casually, she adjusts her messy bun before placing her arm down again, only she _accidentally_ brushes his thigh, her hand coming to rest on the bedspread against him.

She can feel his muscle twitch. The body heat seeping through his jeans.

He doesn’t move away, so Rey takes that as a sign. Her heart is speeding up as she thinks maybe this is it, the moment. She slides her hand onto his thigh, her fingers caressing inward towards his seam, her palm dragging as she moves up, up, up…

Ben’s hand is suddenly on top of hers, huge and warm, stopping her.

“Rey…” He sighs.

“What?”

Ben just stares at her.

“What are you so afraid of?” she whispers, even though there’s no one in the house to overhear them.

“We’re related, Rey. It’s wrong. No matter how much I—”

Rey waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t.

“You can marry your cousin in California,” she blurts out. “It’s not illegal.”

Ben’s eyes widen.

“I mean… not that I think we should get married or mated or anything. I just… I’m just saying. That I read that somewhere.”

Rey wishes a black hole would suddenly form in the middle of the room and swallow her atom by atom. She can feel herself blushing, mortified that Ben probably thinks she’s just proposed to him.

His phone vibrates on the bed. He picks it up, glances at the message, then begins typing.

The film continues to play in the background, but neither of them are paying attention to it anymore.

Rey knows she shouldn’t care, that it’s none of her business, but she can’t help but feel annoyed. They were in the middle of something. And who is he texting? She glances over slyly, not moving her head to give the impression she’s still watching the film, but she can’t read the name or the words. Only a blur of text in blue bubbles.

“Did you want to watch something else?” she asks to try and bring him back to her.

Ben shakes his head distractedly. When he puts the phone down in his lap, it immediately vibrates again. Meanwhile, Rey’s envisioning scenes in her head that are more vivid and visceral than the scenes playing out on the screen.

Is it just one of his friends? Is it Kaydel? Another girl?

“Hey, so…”—Ben finally turns to Rey—“I’m going to head out in a little while.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” Rey nods casually, calmly, no big deal.

Ben gets up, the bed shifting as he makes his way over to his dresser and takes out some clothes. What would he have to get changed for? Where is he going? Is he leaving just to avoid her?

There’s a sinking feeling in Rey’s stomach as he walks out of the room and she hears the bathroom door close, praying to every deity her parents ever worshipped that he doesn’t have a date.

Rey pauses the film. Minutes go by. Then half an hour. Finally, she gets up and goes out into the hall. She knocks on the bathroom door and waits, puts her ear to the wood, but there’s no sound behind it. Finally, she turns the knob to an empty bathroom, dampness still lingering in the air from when Ben must’ve taken a shower, the steam carrying a hint of his Dior Savage cologne like raindrops on fog.

He left without saying goodbye. Or even a “hey, we can watch the rest later.”

Why does this surprise her? She should be used to it by now. She’s had two years of no goodbyes. Nothing’s really changed.

Rey goes back to his room and turns off the TV. In the still silence of his room, an illicit desire creeps up on her. She’s snuck in his room countless times before to touch herself on his bed, but she’s never once gone through his things. She’s prided herself on this, as if one invasion of privacy is somehow less than the other.

But right now, all she can see are the blue bubbles of text. The bed she was just lying on has phantom figures of Ben and Kaydel fucking in every position on it, working their way though the entire Kama Sutra. Sure, he’d kissed her, but it was so brief and chaste, not even any tongue, that it might as well not have happened at all. It doesn’t feel like it happened. They never talk about it. Not in the week since it’s happened.

While Rey stays up late thinking about him, Ben probably doesn’t even give her a second thought. While she fucks herself with her vibrator on the highest setting and imagines it’s him, he probably just jerks off to supermodels or faceless women with big tits. He’s probably pumping his dick inside Kaydel right now.

Rey goes over to his desk and opens a drawer, telling herself she’s just looking for a pen.

She does find pens, along with highlighters, pencils, and some beat-up notebooks labeled Physics and Calc. Spanish flashcards. An SAT prep book.

She opens the second drawer. A black leather journal, scuffed along the edges. One that Rey recognizes as their grandfather’s. Next to the journal are his old calligraphy pens and wells of ink. She wonders if he still messes around with them, or if he’s grown out of it, just like he seems to have done with their friendship. There’s a book on the principles of screenwriting, which is interesting. It’s something she didn’t even know he was into. Has he written any scripts? Has he written about her?

His MacBook Pro is sitting on top of the desk.

If he’s written anything, it would be on there. And she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want to see what kind of things his search history would show. Rut/heat porn? Something more depraved and kinky?…Cousin porn?

Biting her lip, Rey hesitates for only a second before opening it and waking it up from sleep, the screen coming to life.

Password-protected.

She tries a few film titles and band names, then tries it again, adding his birth year to the end. She tries Bazine’s name, then Kaydel’s. She tries _BigAlphaDick69_ just for a laugh. Each time, the password box shakes no.

She picks up the screenwriting book, curious about it. There’s a bookmark one-third of the way through. When she flips open to that page, it flutters out.

Rey bends down to pick it up.

When she sees what it is, shock shoots through her like an electric current.

It’s her. Or rather, a polaroid selfie of her from her Fujifilm Instax Mini camera.

One she took last summer in her room, yellow fairy lights hanging behind her as she artistically slides up her black bikini to reveal the tiny upside-down triangle—the alchemical symbol for water—tattooed on her ribs, under her left breast.

Where did he get this? Had she dropped it somewhere?

And more importantly, why did he have this?

Did he like it just for artistic or aesthetic reasons? Or could it be…

Rey imagines Ben lying on his bed, one hand gripping this polaroid while the other grips his thick, veiny cock, slick with lube. She imagines the mattress shaking and springs squeaking as he jerks furiously, his face twisting in pleasure as viscous creamy cum shoots out all over his stomach, wishing it was inside her.

She nestles the polaroid back into page 163 and places it back into the drawer.

When Rey goes back to her room, she pulls off her tee shirt and unhooks her bra. Picks up her instant camera on her shelf. Poses in what she thinks is her most attractive angle and hits the shutter button.

The new photo is then slid into a random page halfway through, waiting.

*

Nag Champa incense is burning, Au Revoir Simone is playing, and Rey is lying on her bed, flipping through _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ , trying to focus because she only has two weeks left to read this before classes start up again. She probably shouldn’t have smoked two bowls beforehand, not only because she finds herself drifting and having to re-read the same sentence over again, but because she’s now out of weed.

She could text Poe. But the last time she went over to his place to pick up, it was weird. They’d shared a joint while half-watching _Trainspotting_ , and then she somehow ended up with her calves over his shoulders as he fucked her into the scratchy polyester couch. And then Rey went home with a free eighth of OG Kush, which kind of made her feel like a prostitute.

Rey’s phone starts vibrating. She glances over at the screen, seeing a photo of her and Kaydel posing in the kitchen at some random party last year, surrounded by a sea of red Solo cups. The name reads _Satan_ , and in smaller text below it: _iPhone_.

That’s weird. Usually Kaydel just texts. Rey puts her book down and hits accept. “Why are you calling me?”

There’s silence on the other end, and for a second, Rey thinks maybe Kaydel butt-dialed. But then there’s something like a sniffle.

“Hey Rey-bear,” she says. “Do you think you can come over?”

“I’m too stoned to drive,” Rey replies, which is true, even if she’s driven higher than this before.

“Please? I’m just… I’m really not feeling so good right now.”

“Take one of your mom’s Valiums.”

Another sniffle. “I did.”

“Call your therapist.”

“Seriously, when have I ever asked _anything_ of you?”

Rey begins checking off on her fingers. “You ask to copy my English homework all the time, you asked me to take the heat for the schnapps you snuck into school sophomore year—which I got suspended for for like a month, _thank you_. You asked me to—”

“I meant, _lately_ ,” Kaydel says.

“You asked to borrow my green shirt then never gave it back, you—”

“Rey-bear, _please_. You know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Ben broke up with me.” Her voice cracks.

Rey sits straight up, the news hitting her like a splash of cold water, sobering her up. “What? Right now?”

Kaydel sobs. Rey waits.

“Like twenty minutes ago,” she finally says. “I texted him, asking if he wanted to go to the bonfire tonight, and then he said that he was already going, so I was like, ‘Oh cool, see you there?’ and he replied with, ‘Yeah, maybe.’” Kaydel pauses for dramatic effect. “‘Yeah, maybe’?” She scoffs.

“What bonfire?”

“On the beach. Point Dume, I think. In Malibu.” She sniffles. “I invited you on Facebook.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” Kaydel continues. “I was like, ‘Umm… okay, we’ve been together for _weeks_ now, it’s almost our three-week anniversary, and you’re just blowing me off all the time,’ and he responded with,”—more sniffles—“a long message about how we’re not together, how he’s sorry he’s given me the wrong impression, he wishes me well, blah blah blah.”

“So it’s not really a _break-up_ , is it, if you were never dating?” Rey knows she’s rubbing salt in the wound, but Kaydel needs to hear it. It’s antiseptic.

“If you want to get technical,” she snaps. “But we were sleeping together almost every day there for a while and he really seemed like he liked me.” Her voice takes on a pitiful tone. “He was always so nice.”

“That’s just Ben,” Rey says.

Kaydel sighs heavily. It makes a distorted whooshing sound into the phone. “Please, come over.”

“Smoke some weed,” Rey suggests. “Take some more of your mom’s Valium.”

“I already told you, _I did._ ” A sob. Then, small and quiet: “I took a bunch.”

Rey closes her eyes. “I’ll be right there,” she sighs. “Make yourself throw up in the meantime. You’ve been training for this, all your years of borderline bulimia.”

“Thanks Rey-bear,” Kaydel says in a way that makes Rey think maybe she actually means it, and then the line is dead.

*

Kaydel’s house is a modernist white mansion in the exclusive Beverly Hills Flats neighborhood, the kind that’s been featured in countless interior design magazines, which is basically porn for middle-aged housewives. Everything inside is white and black, the wide windows don’t have any blinds or curtains, and it doesn't look like anybody has ever lived here. She feels like she's wandered onto the set of a Kubrick film.

Rey’s only been over twice in the entire eight years she’s known Kaydel. There were never any birthday parties or sleepovers held here, despite the pool in the backyard, which is double the size of Leia’s. Kaydel’s mother Linda is a thrice-divorced socialite heiress whose grandfather founded a major pharmaceutical company, which must be like Candy Land to someone who is—in a socially-acceptable way—a junkie. Rey’s only seen her once, clutching a Chihuahua as she argued on the phone with whomever she was married to or dating at the moment.

As Rey walks inside, she takes her Chucks off and places them next to the front door on the gleaming marbled-white tile. The scattered shag carpets are also immaculate, which makes Rey think the dog has either died or is being held captive somewhere, maybe for ransom.

“Kaydel?” she calls out.

No answer.

Rey carefully walks past marble replicas of Greek statues, past a black grand piano, up the winding staircase to the second floor. She opens the third door on the right, and instantly she’s hit with a tornado of color, the carpet barely visible underneath all the haphazard clothes strewn everywhere.

The door to Kaydel’s private bathroom is open. Kaydel is slumped on the floor, her back to the tub, her knees pulled up and her head on her knees.

“Did you throw up?” Rey asks.

“Yeah,” Kaydel slurs into her knees. “But it was mostly just vodka.”

“Maybe I should call 9-1-1…”

“No!” Kaydel lifts her head and reaches out, grabbing Rey’s arm. “Please Rey-bear, don’t.”

“But if you need help—”

“They’ll send me to some clinic like Paige and I’ll miss _months_ of school and never get into Juilliard and then I’ll die of embarrassment.”

“Or you could, you know, actually _die_.”

“I won’t,” Kaydel swears, like it’s a sleepover secret, a pinkie-promise.

Rey sits down next to her on the cold tile, pulling out her phone. “How much Valium did you take?”

“Three.”

Rey stares at her. “Are you fucking serious?! I rush over here thinking you’re dying, you’re on death’s door, there’s a suicide note—”

“ _Maybe_ four.”

Rey shakes her head. “For fuck’s sake Kay.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, her red eyes filling with tears. “I’m just… I’m really sad.”

There’s a long silence in the bathroom that echoes off the gleaming porcelain. Kaydel rests her head against Rey’s shoulder.

“I know,” Rey says, after a while. “I’m sad too.”

“But I’m, like, _really_ sad.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “It’s not a fucking competition, Kay.”

Kaydel grabs her phone from the tile next to her. “I can’t believe Ben doesn’t have Facebook. Or Instagram. Or Twitter. Or _anything_. It’s like he doesn’t even exist.”

“Yeah, he’s not really the type to be into that sort of thing,” Rey says, as if she knows him any more than Kaydel does.

“But guess who’s back in town,” Kaydel continues. She turns the screen to Rey.

Bazine Netal, beautiful and bronzed, clad in a white tank top and coral tennis skirt, oversized sunglasses covering her face as she poses on a tennis court, looking off in the distance as if she wasn't aware the photo was being taken. The colors are oversaturated, neon.

The location reads _Canto Bight Country Club_. Posted yesterday, at 3:28 PM.

“I thought she left for college,” Rey says as she stares at the photo that looks like it’s straight out of an athletic apparel catalogue. “Why is she back?”

“Who knows?” Kaydel shrugs, scrolling. “But I’m guessing that’s why Ben broke up with me.”

Rey’s tempted to correct her again, but it’s useless. She gets up and stretches. “Come on. Why don’t we get some food in your stomach? Then sleep.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You took four fucking Valium. How are you not passed out drooling right now?”

Kaydel shrugs. She goes to stand up, but then she’s wobbling, grabbing the edges of the marble sink.

“Okay, yeah, bed.”

“But I want to go to the bonfire.” Kaydel pouts.

“I doubt you’d stay conscious for it,” Rey says. “Malibu’s over an hour drive. And I’m not babysitting you.”

“I feel so much better!”

Rey leads her into the bedroom and into the bed, pulling up the covers around her. “I’ll make you something to eat.”

“There’s nothing in the house but broth and fruit for smoothies,” Kaydel says. “Linda’s on a liquid diet kick.”

“I’ll order you something then. Just try and sleep.”

“Stay with me? Please?”

Beyond the wide window overlooking the lawn, the light is growing dim, the pale blue of evening filling the room like a swimming pool.

“Fine,” Rey says, sighing, as she climbs into the full-sized mattress next to her. “But just for a little while.”

Kaydel snuggles against her. “Thank you Rey-bear.”

“You would do the same for me,” Rey answers, thinking back to two years ago when she’d been hospitalized for appendicitis, and how no one visited her except for Leia, Ben, and Kaydel. Or Freshman year, when a popular girl decided Rey was an easy target to bully, and Kaydel threatened to kick her ass in front of everyone, then wrote _Lauren Ross sucks her dad’s dick_ on every bathroom stall in Sharpie.

It’s been painted over countless times, but whenever Rey uses the bathroom at school, she finds it again, the black ink fresh.

*

Rey’s not sure what made her decide to drive all the way to Malibu.

She should’ve just gone home and read her book. Ate something with a vegetable in it, actually get eight hours of sleep. Not spend an hour and twenty-three minutes on the 101 North, the green aluminum signs drifting past, the wind whipping past the rolled-down windows and blowing strands of her hair everywhere.

Eventually, Siri leads her to a parking lot, where there’s BMWs, Mercedes, Porsches, even a bright yellow Lamborghini, which Rey thinks is Mitaka’s. Her sensible silver Volvo feels out of place.

The beach seems pretty isolated, and there are high, steep cliffs all around, which is why Rey guesses this place was chosen over somewhere closer. No way could they have a bonfire and drink illegally on Venice Beach, no matter who their parents are.

The temperature in the car reads that it’s 62 degrees, but as Rey opens the car door, she’s hit by a strong breeze that has gathered momentum over the waves, carrying a hint of salt that she tastes on the back of her tongue. She zips up Ben’s hoodie, walking across the pavement and onto a dirt path that winds towards distant voices and firelight.

The sky is clear, the stars glittering down. She wishes she knew more about astronomy and not just her astrological sign, the brief monthly blurb for Pisces in the back of _Cosmo_ not exactly on the same scientific level as _Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey_.

The bonfire is massive. Much bigger than she had expected. Driftwood crackles as embers and smoke rise into the inky night. Modest Mouse’s “Dashboard” is playing on a portable stereo, combining with the sound of crashing waves like a collaboration, and Rey is more amazed that someone still plays CDs than she is by the number of people there.

Jess is dancing by herself as she takes sips from her red Solo cup. Rey guesses she’s no longer sober, then. Snap is watching Jess from where he’s sitting on the sand. Poor guy… He’s always had a thing for her. Poe is laughing with some red-headed girl Rey doesn't recognize, and Rey waits for the jealousy that never comes. Mitaka, Hux, and Phasma are off in their own little group, as they always are. But where’s Ben?

“Rey!” Paige jogs over to her barefoot, the sand kicking up. She engulfs her in a hug. “I’ve missed you!”

“When did you get home?” Rey asks, returning the hug even though she’s never been much of a hugger. Paige feels less like a skeleton now, but she’s still painfully thin.

“Last week,” she replies. “I’m taking a gap year though. It kinda bummed me out at first, but as my mom said, ‘NYU will still be there.’”

“Sure.” Rey nods.

They walk over to the keg a little ways beyond the bonfire, sticking out of the sand like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Paige grabs a fresh cup from out of the ripped plastic and begins pouring from the nozzle, the acrid smell of the pale lager pinching Rey’s nostrils.

“So where’s Kaydel tonight?” Paige wonders as she hands Rey the cup. “Aren’t you two like joined at the hip?”

Rey takes a sip of the beer. It’s shitty but cold and fizzy, so it’s drinkable. She licks away the foam on her upper lip. “She’s sick.”

“Oh, I hope she feels better,” Paige says. They begin walking aimlessly around. “So hey, there’s a rumor going around that you and Poe hooked up…”

Rey takes a gulp this time. The more she drinks, the less she’ll care about the taste. “Gee, wonder who spread it.”

“Is it true?”

Rey nods. She looks over at Poe, who has begun to make out with the red-head. Paige follows her line of vision.

“Ugh,” she says, indignant on Rey’s behalf. “Fucking men. They’re pigs. And Alphas are the worst of them.”

“Aren’t you an Omega?”

“Yeah…” Paige shrugs. “But after Hux, I refuse to date Alphas. I do give him props for dating another Alpha though. I figured he was like daddy, believing in that whole ‘Alpha men should only date Omega women’ supremacy bullshit.’”

Rey looks at Hux and Phasma. “Yeah, they look pretty happy.”

“I might make an exception to the Alpha rule for your cousin though,” Paige giggles.

Oh for fuck's sake, does _everyone_ want to fuck Ben?

“Is he here?” Rey asks, taking a sip from her cup to give the impression of casualness.

Paige points behind her. Rey turns around.

In the distance, a little ways away from everyone else, Ben sits with Bazine, the rocky cliff looming behind them. He’s in black jeans and a red hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, his black waves blowing in the strong breeze, seemingly lost in conversation.

Rey’s heart drops. It plops right onto the sand, in a dirty patch of spilled beer and stubbed-out cigarettes, and she’s convinced everyone can see it. She quickly picks it up and puts it back in her ribcage.

“Are they back together?” Rey asks.

“I don’t know.” Paige shrugs.

“I can’t believe she came all the way back for a stupid bonfire.”

“It was her little sister’s birthday the other day,” Paige says. “Blaire, I think.”

“Oh.”

They sit down on the chilly sand. Rey tries her hardest not to look at Ben and Bazine, though she’s always aware of them, a buzzing feeling that has nothing to do with the buzz from the beer.

“So how’s Rose?” Rey asks as she stares out at the sea.

“Good. She’s back from science camp. You should give her a call. Or just come over.”

“Yeah,” Rey says, though she knows she probably won’t.

They sit there a while, letting everything wash over them. The foamy waves and foamy beer. The sound waves of music and voices. A party at the edge of the world, celebrating the beginning of college, or being young, or maybe there’s no reason at all. Maybe just being alive is enough of a reason.

*

Sometime later, Rey is walking along the beach, her Chucks in her hand as the cold seawater drifts over her bare feet, drenching the bottom of her jeans. It’s dark, the only light from the waxing moon as it shimmers on the waves, the bonfire a pinprick of light in the distance. She doesn’t know how long she's been wandering, but it feels like forever.

She’s drunk. She hasn’t gotten this wasted in a while, not since Jess’s party last year before she OD’ed and was sent off to rehab.

Rey collapses in the sand, then pulls off Ben’s hoodie, using it as a pillow as she stares up at the stars.

When she opens her eyes again, the world has a turquoise filter over it, seagulls swooping and cawing in the air, and for a second, Rey thinks she’s dead, that this is the afterlife. She hopes that when she does die, she can come back here, haunting the cliffs and waving to sailors as their ships come in, and there’ll be legends of her in a long, flowing white dress, a siren either looking for her long-lost love or luring men to drown, depending on who told the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To keep with the witchy theme of this chapter (can also be used with oracle cards):
> 
> **Card 1** \- _You:_ The card that represents you, obvi.  
>  **Card 2** \- _Sun In Your Eyes:_ What crosses/hinders/blinds you. What's getting in the way. What you're not seeing.  
>  **Card 3** \- _Your Best Friend:_ What's helping you. Advice about what to do.  
>  **Card 4** \- _Your Worst Enemy:_ Who or what is sabotaging you. What to change/avoid.  
>  **Card 5** \- _The Rearview Mirror:_ The past. What led to your circumstances/the situation.  
>  **Card 6** \- _The Horizon:_ The future.


	7. Exotic

_Love is drowning_   
_In a deep well_   
_All the secrets_   
_And nobody else to tell_

_Baby, a dangerous idea_   
_That almost makes sense_

_“Love Is Blindness” by Jack White (U2 original)_

* * *

It’s ungodly early, the birds are still chirping, and Rey is glaring behind her Wayfarers at Kaydel as her white Maserati convertible pulls up in front of the house. Icona Pop’s “I Love It” is blasting from the speakers, and not for the first time, Rey wonders if Kaydel’s on Adderall again.

She opens the door and slams it behind her, settling back into the smooth imported leather seats. “There better be iced coffee, bitch.” Kaydel lifts up a large iced coffee from the cup holder. “Hazelnut with almond milk. I hope you don’t have a nut allergy. Or should I ask Poe?”

“Your mom,” Rey half-heartedly replies.

Rey sips from it as Kaydel pulls out of the driveway and onto the street, and soon they’re gliding past rows of palm trees and wide, manicured lawns still dewy from morning sprinklers. Wind whips loose strands of Rey’s messy bun, while Kaydel’s hair is in two long braids, a hot pink tennis headband around her forehead.

Kaydel waves a flask in front of Rey’s face. “Want to make it Irish?”

“It’s 7:48 in the morning, Kay.”

“And? It’s not like the housewives of Orange County aren’t already sloshed on screwdrivers and mimosas at the clubhouse.”

“Is that why we’re going? To drink? I thought it was because you had a sudden, inexplicable urge to play tennis.”

“I do,” Kaydel insists. “I want to get good. Get a hot tennis bod.”

“And this has nothing to do with Bazine Netal playing tennis at the same exact country club, right?”

Kaydel shakes her head. “I don’t know her.”

Rey rolls her eyes.

“So I guess you don't want this, then.” Kaydel leans over her to push open the glove compartment, pulling out a fat blunt.

Rey takes it, smelling the wrapper.

“It’s watermelon,” Kaydel says.

“And just where are we going to smoke this? We’re in a convertible with the top down. It’s like you’re _asking_ to get caught.”

“In the parking lot, duh.”

“Um… isn't there security? You know, to make sure the proletariats don’t infect them or something.”

“You worry too much Rey-bear. Relax. _Zen_.”

“I’d be a lot more zen if I was back home in bed,” Rey mutters. She’s already drained the coffee, the ice clinking to the bottom of the plastic. “You know school starts up again in exactly two weeks, right? You’re really cutting into my last few days sleeping in.”

“But it’s such a beautiful morning. Look!” Kaydel waves an arm vaguely at what Rey assumes is the majestic scenery of Beverly Hills, including the homeless guy standing with a cardboard sign at the light.

Rey just stares at her from behind her sunglasses.

Definitely the Adderall.

*

Half an hour and another drive-thru iced coffee later, they’re pulling past the gates of the Canto Bight Country Club, past the sprawling lush golf courses that probably use the majority of the water in California, directly contributing to the droughts and forest fires.

Kaydel pulls into a space in the lot, then turns off the car and lights up the blunt. Rey glances around at the few cars, scanning for any pissed-off middle-aged women with sweater vests and “Can I speak to your manager?” energy. There doesn’t seem to be any security or staff around either.

Kaydel hands her the blunt. “You need to chill. I already told you, no one will bother us.”

“How can you be sure?”

“My mom gives them a sizable donation every year. She practically lives here, always ogling the college guys on staff and keeping an eye out for Husband Number Four.”

“Oh. Gross.” Rey takes two puffs, then passes it back. It hits her instantly like a tidal wave, and for a few seconds, she feels herself being pulled underneath the currents. It tastes more flowery than what she’s used to. “Is this from Poe?”

“Nope.” Kaydel flicks the ash out onto the pavement. “He left for San Diego the other day.”

This is news to Rey. She knew he was leaving for college soon, but she figured it would be tomorrow, like Ben. Or maybe a few days after that. Did he really leave without even texting goodbye?

Her thoughts must be all over her face, the strong weed affecting her usual poker face, because Kaydel says, “Hey, fuck him.”

“Already did,” Rey responds. “But yeah, I mean, I don’t care. We weren’t dating. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

“Maybe he thought it would be better that way.” Kaydel shrugs. “I heard Bazine fucked him up pretty bad.”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t say, _So did Ben._

There’s a lull they coast on as they pass the blunt back and forth. Silence fills the convertible from the still, open air like waves washing over a canoe, and soon so much of it has filled the car that neither know what to say.

Rey stares at a distorted version of herself in the passenger side mirror. _Objects in mirror are closer than they appear._

*

When Kaydel does something, she goes all in.

She’s wearing an all-white Lacoste tennis dress, her racquet professional and over $200. She’s matched her Nikes to her hot pink headband. She’s babbling about coming here every morning from now on to practice. Rey’s already planning excuses, weighing the pros and cons of changing her phone number.

She wonders if Kaydel’s newfound interest in the sport is another obsession, just like her two-month-long ballet phase or the acting kick she was just on. Or it could be she’s channeling her heartbreak into hitting something, which Rey can totally understand.

It’s not so bad though. They’re on one of the courts, giggling at each other every time they swing and miss, taunting each other with “come on you cum-bucket” and “nice serve, slut.” The buzz from the weed is fading but the adrenaline and endorphins from exercise replace it as they both start to get into it. Neither of them are very good, but it’s fun and distracting. And when the ball hits the racquet at just the right speed and spot—that sweet spot—Rey’s body sings.

After a while, Rey’s tank top and yoga pants are soaked with sweat, strands of her hair clinging to her face. She’s out of breath, but not as much as Kaydel, since Rey’s used to swimming laps in the pool while Kaydel’s used to sunbathing by it.

They decide to break for brunch in one of the dining rooms. They’re seated by one of the windows, which has a panoramic view of the rolling golf courses and Olympic-sized swimming pool. It’s still early but it’s already hot, the air conditioning making Rey shiver with her sweat-stained clothes. There’s a dress code off the courts, but thanks to Kaydel’s mom, no one says anything.

They both order Bloody Marys with their fake IDs, which justifies their plates of maple syrup-smothered Challah French toast because there’s vegetables in it. Rey’s crunching on one of the celery stalks when she hears, “Rey Skywalker?”

Rey turns her head to see Bazine, clad in black shorts and a light blue silk button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the first three buttons undone to reveal just a hint of the slope of her breasts. She looks effortlessly chic and cool, Parisienne, like she never sweats at all.

“Oh, hi,” Rey says mid-chew, then covers her mouth.

Bazine glances over at Kaydel, then back at Rey. “I’ve never seen you around here before.”

“I’m just here as a guest,” Rey replies, wondering why she suddenly feels like she’s crashing a private party.

Bazine nods. “So how are you? Starting your junior year, right?”

“Senior.” Awkward pause. Rey just wants to get back to her French toast. “And you?”

“Oh, I’m _fantastic_. I’m already ahead with the two summer classes I took. Brown’s amazing, Providence is—”

“You’re going to Brown?” Kaydel interrupts.

Bazine looks at her like an insect that needs to be squashed. “Yes,” she replies crisply.

Kaydel shoots Rey a look across their table.

“Anyway, I just wanted to catch up and see how you were doing,” Bazine continues to Rey. There’s a pause, and for once, there’s a crack in the cool, confident exterior. “And how Ben is doing.”

“Um…” Rey shrugs. “He’s good, I guess.”

Bazine nods. “Good. That’s good to hear. Well… I better…” She motions vaguely over to where it looks like her mother and sister are eating at a table. “Take care.”

“You too,” Rey mumbles, knowing that neither of them really mean it.

Kaydel is scowling. “Did you see how she ignored me? I wonder if Ben told her about us.”

Rey takes a bite of her French toast, which is now a little soggy. Like that’s going to stop her from shoveling it in her mouth though. “Who knows. Though she never was very nice to you.”

“ _Or you_ ,” Kaydel points out. “She obviously just wants it to get back to Ben. _'Oh, I’m just amazingly fantastique.'_ ” Her voice takes on a high-pitched, exaggerated tone. “ _'I’m constantly being fucked by Alpha cocks. I shit rainbows and they’re naming a village after me in Nepal.'_ ”

“I mean, that _was_ pretty cool she volunteered with Habitat for Humanity,” Rey dares to say, earning a glare from Kaydel.

“It was just to make her college application look good,” Kaydel scoffs. “Trust me.”

“I don’t know why she was asking me how Ben is. I saw them talking at the bonfire a few nights ago. They seemed… close.”

“Like making out?”

Rey shakes her head. “Just talking. But like, _away_ from everyone.”

“Maybe she was trying to fish if Ben’s still hung up on her. If he’s moping around the house. Ripping his shirt off as he screams her name in agony.”

Rey laughs at the mental image, despite the sting of Ben being hung up on anyone who isn’t her. Not that he ever would be. Sure, he’d kissed her and kept a polaroid of her as a bookmark, but that just shows that he’s attracted to her, not that he’s in love with her or something.

The waiter comes over with two more Bloody Marys in highball glasses. It’s not even noon and already Rey is exhausted, worn out from the exercise and slowed down by the weed, vodka, and heat. Not to mention her sleep schedule is fucked up, and she’d only gotten three hours of sleep before waking up to Kaydel blowing up her phone about how tennis might be what’s missing from her life.

“Did you want to go swimming?” Kaydels asks, stirring her drink with the celery stalk.

Rey shakes her head. “I’m about ready to pass out.”

“Did you want to come over and crash at my place?”

“I sleep better in my own bed.”

Kaydel’s face falls. But then she’s shrugging like it makes no difference to her.

“Another time,” Rey promises.

Kaydel takes a long sip from her drink. “So… how _is_ Ben? Really.”

“Just as enigmatic as ever,” Rey replies. “You know how he is.”

It occurs to her then that neither of them does. Maybe not even Bazine, despite having dated him for almost six months—the longest of any of his girlfriends. She wonders if they’d ever shared a heat or rut. If they ever said they loved each other. If they love each other still.

What’s to stop them from getting back together, now that they’re going to be at the same college? Kaydel had told her Bazine had gone off to either Harvard or Yale, which wasn’t too far from Brown (Rey had Googled the distance—an hour and forty-three minutes to Yale, two hours and eighteen minutes to Harvard), which could have made dating again possible. But to find out they’ll be running into each other on campus, maybe even have the same classes… live in the same dorm…

Rey downs her drink, the tart tomatoes and pepper sliding down to her stomach, which is already too full with food. In the parking lot, she vomits into a trash bin and is asked to leave by one of the staff, even though that was exactly what they were doing. Kaydel pulls a “Don’t you know who I am?”, threatening to speak with the owner and cancel her membership, and then they’re falling over themselves to apologize, handing out golf and meal vouchers and telling her she looks like Maria Sharapova.

On the way home, Kaydel stops at a gas station to buy an Evian so Rey can rinse out her mouth, but it’s still not enough to get the taste of hopelessness out.

*

When Rey awakes, her room is filled with a pale blue light, and she doesn’t know whether it’s dawn or dusk.

She feels like she’s underwater, her limbs anchored down, heavy and slow. She has a pounding headache, her tongue is sawdust, and her right arm is sore all the way down.

She feels like a zombie as she stumbles out of her room, down the hall, down the steps that she trips on, seeking water like brains. She downs two entire glasses while sitting at the kitchen counter. Her arms are folded on the cool marbled stone, her head down and eyes closed when she hears Ben walk in. The refrigerator door opens and closes.

“You okay?” That deep, velvety voice that always manages to make her feel things she doesn’t want to feel. Even worse than feeling mildly hungover and sore and exhausted right now, she feels how much in love with him she is. She hates it.

“Yeah,” Rey says as she lifts her head and rubs her eyes. “Just a headache. I already took two Advil.”

“Oh! Oh, okay.”

There’s something in the way he says it that makes Rey put her hands down to look at him. “Why? You need something?”

“I, um…” He rubs the back of his head. “I wanted to know if maybe you’d want to go catch a film tonight.”

Rey’s dead heart is reviving. “A movie?”

“Yeah. They’re showing _Casablanca_ for one night only at The Vista.”

“Oh! Yeah, that sounds fun. I’d love to.”

“But if you’re not up for it…”

“I’m already feeling a little better,” she assures him. “What time is the showing?”

“8:30.”

Rey checks her iPhone like the modern-day pocket-watch it is. “Shit, it’s already 7:30.”

“Yeah, I just found out about it a little while ago. We can make it, it’s only like half an hour away.”

Rey nods, then rushes past Ben out of the kitchen, dashing up the steps. After furiously brushing her teeth in the bathroom, she runs to her room to rummage through her closet to find something nice, maybe sexy. She decides on a ribbed ocher tank top with black buttons and a very low v-neck, which she doesn’t bother wearing a bra for—an advantage of being an A cup. She accentuates her chest with a long yellow gold necklace, which glimmers against her slightly-tanned skin and disappears teasingly inside her shirt.

She tucks the shirt loosely into white skinny jeans, slips her feet into black ballet flats. In the large mirror leaning against the wall, she swoops her hair up into a high bun and pulls a few strands down, then applies under-eye concealer, mascara, and lip gloss. She doesn’t have time to do a winged eye, and a smokey eye would just make her look like a rabies-infected raccoon after the day she had.

The entire time, she reminds herself this isn’t a date. This is two friends, practically brother and sister, hanging out. She’s gone to see movies countless times with Kaydel and Rose. Just because she’s never gone before with a boy—a man—doesn’t mean anything. They’ve watched stuff hundreds of times—even though it was mostly two years ago and they’ve only recently resumed their little film club, now with an added bonus of searing sexual tension.

Just because they’re going to be in the dark, in a historic theater that’s a pretty damn good romantic setting, doesn’t mean it’s a date. Ben just probably doesn’t have anyone else to ask, Hux and Mitaka more of the blockbuster-explosions type.

He could’ve asked Bazine.

But he said he’d _just_ found out about the showing. So there probably wouldn’t have been enough time. He’d asked Rey because she was around and he knows she appreciates films. That’s all.

As Rey descends the stairs, she sees Ben standing at the front door, lost in his phone. He looks up when she gets closer, halfway down, and for a second— _a second_ —she could swear his face transforms into someone she’s never seen before. That’s the thing about Ben—his face has always been so expressive that every tiny emotion molds his face like a sculpture, the clay never able to go back to exactly what it was before, looking different every time. That doesn’t make him any easier to read, though. He’s become an expert at quickly smoothing out the lines, schooling himself into stone.

“You look nice,” he says, his eyes flickering down her shirt before looking at his phone again.

“Thanks,” Rey says, all the while reminding herself, _Not a date, not a date, not a date._

Ben opens the door for her, and together they walk over to his black 1972 Camaro. He doesn’t open the passenger-side door for her, so in a karmic way, it evens out.

*

The Vista Theater is the longest-running independent theater in Southern California. Built in 1923, it’s a silver screen legend, the bricks having been piled on top of the ruins of the Babylon set from the 1916 epic silent film _Intolerance_. The Spanish revival exterior contrasts with the Egyptian theme within, but the melting pot of different cultures and styles is nothing if not a symbol of America.

Ben buys their tickets at the box office out front, which is painted gold and chiseled with hieroglyphics. When they head inside the foyer, Rey buys the popcorn from the concession stand. Ben then buys the sodas. Rey starts to keep a tally of this, as if this is an equation to what exactly this is between them, before realizing that both of their accounts contain money from the Naberrie inheritance. It’s just another reminder they’re related. Another reminder of all the things that can never be. Rey’s certain it’s not the most tragic tale in all of Hollywood history, but try telling that to her heart.

They stroll into the theater itself, which is a single screen obscured behind heavy red velvet curtains. Gilded Egyptian statues are illuminated on the walls as Art Deco glass lamps hang high over rows of black seats.

Rey and Ben settle into their chosen seats in the middle of the theater, in the middle of the row, both knowing that this is the ideal spot for viewing—not too close, not too far away. There’s only a handful of other people, mostly in a middle-aged to elderly bracket, but there’s a few teens and twenty-somethings.

Ben hands her one of the Cokes, then pulls out his phone. For a few seconds, she’s kind of pissed off about it, but then she realizes he’s turning it off.

“So…” Rey begins, then glances behind her at faint laughter from someone a few rows back. “Heard of this movie before, have you?”

The corners of his mouth quirk. “No. I think it’s directed by Michael Bay?”

“Oh really? I heard it was in the _Fast and the Furiou_ s universe.”

“No, definitely a sequel to _Freddy Got Fingered_.”

A young couple moves hand-in-hand down the aisle two rows ahead, then chooses the seats in front of them, smiling and murmuring about something the way all couples do. Soon they’re kissing. It quickly evolves into making out, deep and slow, their tongue visible like snails being passed back and forth.

“Little early for that, don’t you think?” Rey says. “The lights haven’t even dimmed yet.”

Ben’s watching them too. “You’d think they would’ve chosen the back, like those degenerates over there.” He nods in the direction of a prim elderly couple a few rows behind them.

Rey stifles a laugh by biting her lip. She then leans in close to Ben’s space, his unique Alpha smell and Dior Savage cologne mingling deliciously. She feels like Eve drawn to the forbidden fruit. “Maybe they’re exhibitionists.”

“You think there’s a leather whip in her bag?” he murmurs.

A fantasy of Ben pulling her down over his lap roughly, her jeans shoved down to her knees as he palms her ass, then spanks her hard, his thick fingers dragging across her cunt, growing wetter and more swollen with every sparking smack. Rey wonders if she’s blushing.

“No, but maybe handcuffs.” The furry red ones Kaydel had bought at that sex shop flashes through Rey’s mind. She wonders if they’d used them. “The metal kind,” she adds. “Or maybe leather. Not the stupid furry things.” Then, because she’s feeling drunk from his scent and daring: “It should hurt a little.”

Ben quirks an eyebrow, an amused pull at his lips. “Just what kind of porn are you watching?”

Oh, Rey’s _definitely_ blushing now. “Why, what kind of porn do you watch?”

“I don’t really. Erotic films are more my speed.”

“You’re totally lying.”

Ben smirk grows wider, devilish.

“Let me guess…” Rey narrows her eyes, peering at him in faux analysis. “Rut/heat porn for the typical Alpha male gaze. Needy, submissive Omegas, that sort of thing.”

He shrugs. “Sometimes.”

“And other times?” She’s trying to sound nonchalant, like this is a perfectly ordinary conversation between two cousins.

“It depends on my mood, I guess.”

Rey wants to know what he means; wants to push this further. She wants to know what he wants. She wants to give it to him.

But then the velvet curtains are being pulled back, the screen no longer hidden just as a curtain falls across Ben’s face again. The lights dim, darkness descending upon the theater except for the illuminated gilded statues.

 _Casablanca_ shines out of the 35mm projector, flickering monochrome upon the screen.

*

“ _Remember, this gun is pointed right at your heart,_ ” Rick tells Captain Renault.

Rey can’t help but think of Ben when the character replies, “ _That is my least vulnerable spot._ ”

*

The night is chilly for August, and Rey’s beginning to rethink having worn only a thin tank top. That doesn’t stop her from rolling down the window though, the wind whooshing past her hand, her arm outstretched into the night.

She could swear the air carries a hint of lilacs, their sweet fragrance wafting down from somewhere up the canyons as Ben’s black Camaro winds through the empty roads.

“Soft Shock” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs is drifting softly out of the stereo, languid like smoke. Rey’s not stoned, but she feels like she is.

She looks over at Ben. At his waves swaying in the wind. His large hand on the gear stick, shifting. He does it with ease, power, and control, the car never jerking. It’s a smooth ride, showcasing how experienced he is, in this and in other ways. It makes Rey feel inferior, despite there only being an age difference of a year.

“Why did you ask me and not Bazine?” she finally asks, the courage coming from the wind. She hopes he knows what she means.

Ben reaches over and lowers the volume dial. “Because I wanted to go with you.”

“But why?”

He glances over at her, then his eyes are back on the road ahead. “I like spending time with you. No one else shares that same passion for film. I’m really going to miss that.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “You’re going to _Brown_. You’ll be surrounded by intellectual types of all kinds.”

Ben is shaking his head.

“I’m sure they’ve heard of Kurosawa,” she drawls, slumped against the seat.

“I’m sure they’ve heard of directors and films I don’t even know about,” he replies. “Doesn’t mean I won’t miss you.”

Rey’s heart flutters with hope. _He’s going to miss me as a friend, as family_ , she reminds it, keeping it locked in its cage. “What are you studying, anyway? I can’t believe I don’t know.”

“You never asked.” Ben turns the wheel onto their street. “Egyptian and Near Eastern Archeology.”

Rey laughs. Ben doesn’t.

“Oh… you’re _serious_. I thought—I don’t know, you’d be majoring in film studies or something.”

“Thought about it, but no.”

“Why archeology?”

Ben shrugs. “Han was always into that sort of thing. You remember when we were kids, and he’d always regale us with stories about his travels throughout Egypt, Morocco, India, Thailand, Tibet. How much we loved it.” He says it like a statement, but he looks over at Rey. She nods. “Well, turns out none of them were true. They were just that—stories. Dreams he’s had, opportunities he’s wasted. The furthest east he ever got was to Nevada, and that was only for the roulette and poker and legal prostitution.”

“I always assumed he and Leia traveled together? I mean, she has the money…”

Ben laughs, but it’s a harsh sound. It sputters out bitter and burnt like day-old coffee. “Leia was always too busy. Nothing’s changed there. People don’t change.”

_People don’t change._

It echoes in the silence of the car. It’s all Rey can hear.

Ben pulls into the driveway and turns off the ignition. They sit there together in the semi-darkness, neither making a move to leave.

“Why study something you know he’s always wanted to? Just out of spite?”

Ben looks at her as if she doesn’t understand him at all. And maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she never has. “Because he’ll never get to,” he says.

“It’s not like he’s dead.”

“He might as well be.”

“ _Ben!_ ”

“Look,” He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to argue. Let’s just go inside. We had a nice night and I don't want it to end.”

“I don’t want it to end, either,” Rey admits.

When they open the car door, the heaviness lifts and scatters to the wind, but the scent of lilacs is gone.

*

Paradise is a glass of Dom Pérignon.

Rey’s not sure what possessed Ben to grab this bottle of all bottles from out of Leia’s wine rack, but she’s not complaining. The effervescent bubbles burst like sea foam on her tongue with zesty lemon and grapefruit notes, with roasted hazelnut and sweet vanilla and caramel as the undercurrent. It’s the best fucking thing she’s ever tasted. Then again, she’s never tasted Ben.

They’re lying on her bed for once, though Rey’s not sure why. His room has the bigger TV and surround sound. But she’s not complaining—her bed is twin-sized, which means they’re practically on top of each other as “Love Is Blindness” by Jack White croons lowly over the bluetooth speakers. The lights are off, save for the yellow fairy lights and a few candles flickering around the room.

Ben hands her the joint he’d just finished wrapping, though she’s not sure where he’d got the weed if Poe had been avoiding him all summer. It reminds her that she’d forgotten to ask Kaydel who her new connection is. Rey takes a hit, filling her lungs deeply before exhaling a cloud that blends into the hanging fog of cannabis smoke permeating the room.

There’s a low buzz like a bass reverberating throughout her body. She feels good. She feels weight and lightness at the same time, in two places at once—the past and the future, but not here. Not now. Ben’s hand is on her cheek, turning her head to him, bringing her back.

“You okay?” he asks, not quite a whisper, his voice quiet but still low and deep. His breath kisses her lips.

“Yeah. Just thinking. You?”

“Me too,” he says.

“What about?”

Ben turns his head, staring up at the ceiling. “Leaving tomorrow. What that’s going to be like. Before, I couldn’t wait to get out of here. I didn’t think I’d ever look back. I mean…”—He licks his lips—“…I knew I’d miss you. Even when we weren’t talking. But we never really needed to talk to feel one another.”

Pleasure strums through her body like an electric guitar, joining the bass of her buzz. “I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

She nods.

They stare at each other.

“I found your photo the other day, by the way,” he says.

Rey looks away, screwing her eyes shut. Fuck, she’d forgot all about that. She’s made plenty of impulsive and bad decisions, but this one is now going to ruin whatever tentative friendship they’ve glued back together.

“I jerked off to it three times already.”

Rey turns back to him, shocked. “You did?”

“Can I see the tattoo? I never really got to get a good look before.”

It’s _such_ a line, but one Rey is all too willing to play along with. She sits up and pulls off her shirt, tossing it haphazardly to the floor. She looks down at herself, thankful her nipples are hard, though it’s probably less to do with the chilly night and more to do with Ben.

She lies back down, her heart a pounding drum. She only has her necklace and jeans on now.

Ben’s fingertips brush the water alchemical symbol tattooed on her left ribs. “Beautiful,” he whispers, though he’s no longer staring at her tattoo but her breasts.

Rey blushes. She’s sure it’s spread everywhere on her skin.

“Do you have any other tattoos?” he asks.

Rey shakes her head. “I’d like to get more.”

“Where?”

“Um… on my hipbone, maybe.” She’s never really thought about it, but it seems like a sexy place.

Ben nods. “Can I see?

Rey unbuttons her jeans, slides the zipper down, and shimmies it off her hips. She’s not wearing the sexiest underwear—just a simple black pair, not even lace. But Ben doesn’t seem to care, his fingers drifting down from her ribs, down her stomach, to her left hip. He stops just over the top of the fabric.

She can feel the path of his fingertips like they’ve seared her flesh. Like he’s branded her, though she knows she’s always been his. She’ll always be his, no matter where he is.

“What about you?” she asks. “Any tattoos?”

He shakes his head.

It must be the weed and the champagne, because she dares to say, “Take off your shirt, Ben.”

Ben’s eyes flick back up, black and hot as coals. She swears she can feel them burning into her. “If I do that, we both know where this will go.”

“And what’s so bad about that?”

“There’d be no going back. Not for me, not for you.”

“I think we’re already passed that. I think we passed that a long time ago.”

But Ben’s shaking his head. “It’s easier this way. Less complicated. Less messy.”

“Maybe I want it to be messy.”

He runs a hand through his hair, a tuft falling down across his eyes. Rey lifts her hand up and pushes it back.

“When I said it was wrong…” Ben sighs deeply. “I mean, it doesn’t feel wrong. But it is. What would Leia say? Or Luke? Or any of your friends, or—”

“No one has to know.”

“But what if I want them to?” Ben says with such an intensity, she’s shocked, paralyzed, holding her breath. “If we do this, we’re going all in. Sneaking around might be fun for a while, but I’d want more. I wouldn’t want to hide it.”

“Ben…” It comes out breathless, less like a name and more like an impression.

“But what am I saying? I’m leaving tomorrow—for _four years, Rey_ —and long-distance just doesn’t work in the best of circumstances. Add the taboo cousins things, and it just… we can’t.”

“Then just tonight,” she says. “One night to get it out of our system.”

Ben stares at her for a long while. So long, she thinks she’s finally pushed too far, and now he’s miles away, already on that plane 38,000 feet up in the sky, soaring through clouds as the lights of California glimmer and fade underneath him, perhaps forever.

“One night,” he warns.

Then, with both hands, he’s grabbing a hold of the hem of her jeans and yanking them down the rest of the way off, tossing them to the floor. Rey bites her lip hard with anticipation.

The song ends. But a new one starts on shuffle.


	8. Genesis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent some time re-writing this chapter, mostly the smut part (which I struggle with the most), with lots of lines/paragraphs added. About 2K words or so. Plus there's an added scene at the end. RedDoor_LStreet called it the "Collector's Edition," which I love. 😂
> 
> Hope you enjoy. 🖤

_I’ll bring you when my lifeboat sails through the night_   
_That is supposing you that you don’t sleep tonight_

_It’s like learning a new language_   
_Helps me catch up on my mime_   
_If you don’t bring up those lonely parts_   
_This could be a good time_

_“Leif Erikson” by Interpol_

* * *

Rey can remember the first time she realized she was attracted to Ben.

She was thirteen—the age of spending the entire weekend at the mall, of preppy plaid and polo shirts, of Victoria’s Secret Love Spell body spray, of Teen Vogue quizzes, of spin-the-bottle and Five Minutes in Heaven, of innocence fading more every day.

In her defense, she _had_ knocked first. But then she’d opened the door right after without waiting, to find Ben in the midst of changing, shirtless and pulling down his boxer briefs. He was skinny, lanky, but there was a trail of wiry dark hair from his navel down, and while it’d only been a second, she’d glimpsed his dick. It was the first time she’d seen one. He quickly pulled his boxer briefs back up and yelled at her to get out. For the next few days, she couldn’t even look at him in the eyes. When he’d asked her to pass the mashed potatoes at dinner one night, her cheeks flamed so bright, Leia had asked if she felt unwell. Rey was used to Ben riling her up, but for stupid reasons, like typical brothers and sisters. But this was different; he wasn’t even trying. That was the moment that it really hit her he wasn’t her brother. Still, he was her family, so she figured something must be really wrong with her to find him hot.

Not that she wanted to have sex with Ben. She wouldn’t have even known what to do with his dick at that age. She never really thought about sex, even when she’d overhear other girls in the bathroom talking about hand-jobs. All she wanted was to make out with someone. As for what would happen after that, it was like a teen movie where it fades to black.

She finally had her first kiss when she was fifteen—the age of smoking in other people’s cars, of skinny jeans and flannel shirts, of shiny lip gloss applied around her lip ring, of over-applied eyeliner and straightened side bangs, of selfies taken at a high angle in the bathroom, of invincibility, of no regrets—at least, not the kind that stick.

 _Cassian Andor_ had been scribbled in the margins of her notebooks ever since September of her sophomore year, when she’d met him at the skatepark where Kaydel and her had started hanging out. He was the coolest guy she knew. And while he was a Beta, he always smelled good, like sandalwood and earth. Lingering traces of cigarette smoke and flowery weed. But like Romeo and Juliet, he went to public school while she went to private, so she rarely saw him, unless watching his stories on Snapchat over and over until they disappeared counted. He’d kissed her on Sunday, October 13th, in a darkened movie theater not far from Chinatown. Rey, Kaydel, Bodhi, and Cassian had all snuck into the movie together even though Rey and Kaydel had the money to pay for tickets. As Kaydel and Bodhi began to make out, so did Cassian and Rey. They made out through all 91 minutes of _Gravity_ , to the point where if you’d asked her what the movie was about, all she could say was, “Astronauts.” It was the only time he’d kissed her. She kept waiting for him to do it again.

It was a typical evening in late November when Rey and Kaydel pedaled down to the park on their bikes to watch Cassian and his friends skate, though they didn’t skate so much as fuck around on their boards, smoking menthols they bummed off of some older kids that hung around. Baze—whom everyone called “Blaze”—had cut open one of the cigs and rolled a joint with some shitty weed, but they were young enough not to care about the seeds and stems, or being ripped off. As the autumn sun set golden behind the graffitied concrete, they passed a 40 between them. It was acrid and tasted like piss, but Rey sipped from it anyway.

At some point, Kaydel went off to go flirt with some nineteen-year-old. Rey just sat there awkwardly with Blaze, chain-smoking for something to do. She kind of got the feeling he was into her, but she burned only for Cassian, right up there with Jesse Lacey and Adam Brody. She was half a step away from printing out his photos and hanging them on her wall.

And then Jyn came around.

Jyn was the kind of girl who read Sylvia Plath and carried a switchblade. She was beautiful, of course. And she had the advantage of going to the same high school as Cassian. Rey could tell he had thing for Jyn, just by the way he was always looking at her when she wasn’t looking, and the dumb ways he’d show off. But she seemed oblivious, uninterested. She often talked about her girlfriend, a green-haired scene chick she’d met online who lived somewhere around San Antonio.

But that November night, something changed. Rey had a front-row seat to watching Jyn go up to Cassian and kiss him hello. His arm went around her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like they’d done it a million times. Like they were dating or something.

It seemed green-haired girls were history.

It was crushing. Not even the buzz from the nicotine and weed and malt liquor could lift up the concrete that had collapsed upon Rey. She felt more alone than ever, even more so than if she’d been shut up in her room, the same songs playing on repeat. She’d mumbled some excuse about needing to go home, then hopped on her bike and pedaled away into the chilly night, the hood of her hoodie up. At some point she’d tried to light the crumpled cigarette that she’d stashed in her pocket, but pedaling and lighting and crying all at the same time proved too difficult in that moment. There was a lurch, then a rush of pavement. Stinging scrapes on her knee and forehead.

Ben found her on the sidewalk half an hour later, after she had dropped him a pin. Although he was sixteen and only had his permit, he’d taken out one of Han’s cars, the ’71 Ford Falcon, which would end up disappeared one day, likely sold to some bookie to pay off his never-ending gambling debts.

Interpol’s _Turn on the Bright Lights_ was playing softly in the car, thrumming with baritone and bass, sinking low in her gut, along with Ben’s woodsy scent mixed with the car’s air freshener. The band always made her think of sex, not that she needed a reminder when she was in close proximity to Ben. The album played all the way home. Yellow streetlamps floated past the windows as she stared out vacantly into the night.

The car turned into the driveway. The ignition was turned off. And then Ben leaned over into her space, his large hands engulfing both sides of her head, and for a few long, euphoric seconds, she thought he might actually kiss her. But then he gently moved her head down, his eyes on the scrape on her forehead and not her lips, like she’d hoped they would be.

That was the first time Rey realized she had feelings for Ben.

How serendipitous then, that the song that plays on shuffle in the candlelit bedroom two years later would be from the same band, the same album.

It must mean something. _This_ must mean something.

“Last chance to turn back, Rey,” he murmurs, his voice impossibly deep. She falls into it like a plunge at the deep end of the pool. “To pretend this never happened. If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t want to pretend anything,” she says. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t want to escape into daydreams.

“But I need you to be sure.”

His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows, a brief crack in his cool exterior. She stares through the crack, seeing him clearly despite the haze of champagne, weed, and lust. He’s nervous. All the girls he’s been with, and he’s nervous. It calms Rey’s own nerves, makes her feel confident and desirable. A new feeling for her.

“I’m sure,” she says. She’s never been more sure of anything in her life.

He pulls off his shirt, tossing it to the floor. Her gaze instantly goes to the trail of wiry black hair disappearing into his black jeans. Transfixed, she watches as he unbuttons them to ease the pressure of his cock straining against the denim. He then pulls down his jeans and boxer briefs together, and when he stands up again at the foot of the bed… Rey must've had more champagne than she thought, because she feels lightheaded.

His cock is jutting out magnificently. Long, thick, veiny. Leaning slightly to the left.

Her mouth goes dry, as if she’d been lost in the desert for days. She drinks him in—the wide expanse of his muscled chest, rising and falling with every breath; his skin glowing in the dark, pale even with the scorching California sun. And that massive cock she thought only porn stars had. No longer is he the scrawny kid she’d accidentally walked in on. This is a man. An epitome of _Alpha_. He reminds her of marble statues of Greek gods. If there was a god of sex, he’d be it.

He kneels on the bed, the mattress springs straining with his weight, looming over her. She’s so mesmerized by his body, it’s a shock when she feels his fingers hook inside the band of her underwear. As he slowly pulls them down, Rey lifts her hips up to help him, jolts of electricity branching down her body like lightning. A rush of warm wetness.

Ben’s nostrils flare.

With a teasing touch, he glides his fingertips from her ankles up her calves to the soft insides of her thighs, the sensitive flesh. His touch becomes hard, gripping her thighs almost possessively as he slowly spreads them apart. Wider.

She’s fully exposed to him like this, splayed out on the bed, her cunt lips swollen and glistening with slick, already ready for him. She doesn’t even need foreplay—they’ve had years of it, their scents teasing each other, spiking with every sliver of skin, a bass of heady desire thrumming underneath their pheromones like spicy patchouli.

It’s as thick as smog in the room right now.

Ben gazes down at her cunt like he’s never seen one before. Her mind instantly goes to a dark place, wondering how many girls he’s fucked. How this is just going to be another notch on his bedpost.

She tries to clear it away, to bring herself back to the here and now like mindful meditation. She doesn’t want to ruin this for herself. This is all she’ll ever get. It’s more than she thought she would. Shouldn’t it be enough?

Ben finally tears himself away from her cunt, staring deep into her, penetrating her soul. His pupils have swallowed all the brown, usually warm like freshly baked brownies. In the flickers of candlelight, they look piercing. Promising. Warning. All the things he could do to her. She’d let him do it all.

“Rey?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I…” He licks his lips, those plush lips. “Can I fuck you raw?”

Rey shivers, a fresh gush of warm slick seeping out.

“I mean, I have condoms if you want, but…”

“No!” There’s a hint of desperation, so she reels it back, plays it cool. “No, that’s fine.”

Ben grins wolfishly. “Good. You have no idea how much I want to cum inside you.”

There’s a sudden lurch as he yanks her further down the mattress. Her back tenses like she’s at the top of a rollercoaster, her stomach dropping. The sensation of falling, over and over.

His hands move up the sides of her body, his thumbs brushing over her nipples, sending pings of pleasure down. Then he’s moving them down again, over her stomach. His touch feels like a brand. Her back arches.

Ben lowers himself over her, closer now, millimeters away, his body covering hers, eclipsing everything. All she can see is him.

She watches his gaze drifts down to her lips, her own parting in anticipation. When he bends down, their mouths instantly open to one other, tongues tangling in a deep kiss she can feel low in her cunt. He hasn’t kissed her since their first kiss on the roof three weeks ago, that lapse in judgement that he said could never happen again. And yet here they were, making another mistake they would later blame on the champagne and weed, though deep down, Rey knows the truth: they both want this. They _need_ this. One night to get it out of their system, just like he said. And then they’ll go their separate ways, cold turkey, like dope fiends sweating out junk. Just one night, one big hit. And if it’s going to be the last, might as well go all in.

She’s past caring that they're cousins. She doesn’t think she ever cared, not really. If they're damned, let them be damned. This feels too fucking good.

The head of his cock is bobbing teasingly against her swollen, slick folds. She feels her cunt clench—so empty. She wraps her legs around his hips.

She think she’s going to die if he doesn’t fuck her _right_ _now_. She’s never needed anything more. Not even water in a heatwave.

“ _Ben_ …” She pants. Such a whiny, needy Omega, but right now, she couldn’t care less. But Ben doesn’t budge. Instead, he lifts his hand up and gently pushes away a stray wisp of her hair that had fallen in front of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. Then his touch ghosts down the side of her face, his thumb tugging on her bottom lip. She darts her tongue out against the pad, tasting his salty skin, before sucking it in all the way down, the way she's always fantasized about doing to his cock.

His breath hitches.

And then suddenly, with one powerful thrust—

Ben’s inside her.

The air in Rey’s lungs whooshes out. _Fuck_.

_Oh fuck._

She’s full, so fucking full. Impaled on his cock. She can feel him _everywhere_. She can’t believe it. He’s inside her.

_Ben Solo is inside her._

He’s staring at where he disappears inside her, like he can’t believe it either. But then he looks up, a devious smirk tugging at his lips as he slowly slides out, his stomach brushing hers. And then he pushes into her again, all the way to the hilt. A delicious burn.

“I want to eat you out so badly,” he says. “But I don’t think I could’ve spent another second not being inside you.”

Rey knows the feeling.

In, out, in, out, in, out. He’s going faster now. Gaining a rhythm.

On either side of her head, the muscles of his freckled biceps flex as he holds himself up, trying not to crush her. But Rey wants him to crush her. She needs to feel weighed down by his body. That this is happening. That this is real.

She pushes on his back, urging him down, urging him closer. He hitches her thighs up higher, trying to go deeper, as deep as he can go. His hips crash into hers. The waves of the mattress roll. Back and forth, back and forth, springs squeaking.

He’s so big that it hurts, but she’s growing slicker to accommodate. After all, she was made for this, for him. No Beta could take him all the way in. Not even Kaydel with her knot trainers and fake slick.

He fucks down into her again. And again. And again. The sound of slapping skin fills the room obscenely. Her hips rise up the mattress, meeting him every thrust.

Ben suddenly grabs her calves and yanks them up, hooking them over his shoulders. It’s so much deeper this way, even if it means her thigh muscles burn and she can’t move. He then reaches down between them and starts rubbing her clit. Every nerve ending electrifies, coming alive. It’s almost too much.

The bed haphazardly hits the wall.

“Ben…” Rey half-whispers, half-moans. “Leia…”

“She takes sleeping pills with a bottle of wine every night." His breath is hot against her ear. “Don’t worry.”

She can’t see his face. Only his wild mane of black waves as he buries his head into the left side of her neck.

“ _Alpha_ ,” Rey moans involuntarily, as if his cock was pulling it out of her, from someplace ancient and primal.

She didn’t think it was possible, but he begins fucking her even faster, harder. Four years of foreplay, of pining, of pent-up sexual frustration, of denial, of trying to forget. A thousand years of wildness, of wolves, all leading up to this moment.

Rey’s neck aches. It aches so fucking bad.

Ben’s staring at it, her mating gland. His gaze is intense, unblinking. Hypnotized.

“Please,” she whines. “Please please please.” She doesn’t know what she’s begging for. The wave to crash, or for him to bite her, claim her, make her his own. _No going back._

He leans down, his tongue sliding hot and wet over her gland. It’s not enough.

“Please, please—”

“ _Shh, Omega,_ ” he murmurs against her skin. His teeth scrape against the gland, and for a few beautiful seconds, the ecstasy is so overwhelming, she’s paralyzed with it.

Rey turns her head all the way to the right, giving Ben better access. Silently begging him to mate her. She sees her half-empty glass of champagne on the nightstand, the liquid moving with the vibration of him fucking her raw.

A large, warm hand pulls her back to him.

His tongue plunges deep inside her mouth. It’s a messy kiss, wet and consuming. Desperate.

With his cock pummeling her and his tongue down her throat, she feels completely, utterly fucked. It feels like he wants to devour her.

This isn’t slow, tender love-making. Rose petals and poetry. This is the dam breaking—everything all at once. There’s love in it, she can feel it, but it burns white hot. She’s not even in heat and yet the passion of this has scorched any memory of Poe. There was nothing before this. Nothing existed before this.

The waves rise high and higher. A tsunami threatening to wipe out entire cities. A flood of damnation, Old Testament style. She doesn’t care. Even if God himself were to come down and tell her this is wrong, she wouldn't stop. She wants to die this way, drowning in everything Ben.

“Fuck, Rey,” Ben pants. “ _Fuck_. I…”

She waits for him to say more, but he gets pulled back under the currents. Whatever he was going to say is lost.

His rhythm becomes more erratic, his hips sputtering against hers. She can feel his cock grow even harder, twitching inside her. He's close. God, he looks so beautiful. A magnificent wreck. And the way he’s looking at her…

Just when Rey thinks she can’t take anymore, she feels herself let go. She feels like she’s been pushed over the cliffs of Point Dume. She comes only seconds before Ben, his cum spreading warm deep inside her, his knot catching on her walls, stuffing her even more than she thought was possible. There’s no room for anything else. Not her parents, or Leia and Han, or Kaydel, or Poe, or any of the girls Ben’s fucked before. Not high school or college. Not expectations or disappointments. It’s all washed away. Blinding whiteness. Lightness. Floating.

Rey thinks Genesis got it wrong. The universe wasn’t all darkness before light—it was the other way around.

*

For ten minutes they’re knotted, pulses of cum shooting deep inside Rey. They’re lying on their sides—him on his right, her on her left—staring at one another, memorizing each’s others’ faces as if they’ll never get another chance to.

Will he look the same in four years? Will he be the same?

She knows it’s ridiculous to think about it. After all, she’ll surely see him around Winter Break, and there’s always the summers. But what if he spends the holidays in Aspen with Hux, or has a sudden desire to study Viking history in Scandinavia? What if he meets some blonde Swedish girl who looks like a supermodel, and he just decides to never come home again?

What if he forgets her?

Ben must see something flicker across her face, because he’s reaching out, his fingertips gently pushing a few strands that had fallen in front of her eye behind her ear. His touch lingers like a ghost.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Rey bites her bottom lip as she looks past him, holding back the question she desperately wants to ask, but not sure she wants the answer to.

“What is it?” He can read her so well. Too well, maybe.

“Have you…” She clears her throat. “Have you done that before?”

Ben raises an eyebrow.

“I mean, not _sex_. _Of course_ you’ve had sex. So have I, obviously. With Poe. But you knew that already…” She stops herself, inhaling deeply. When she exhales, she just comes out with it: “Have you ever had sex without a condom before?”

“I’ve been tested,” he assures her. “Just recently, in fact. After…” He doesn’t need to finish that sentence.

“That’s not what I mean.”

A few seconds pass, Ben not understanding and Rey too embarrassed to explain. But then realization dawns on him.

“No,” he says, pushing a strand of sweaty hair behind her ear. “I’ve always used condoms. Every time. But with you… Maybe it’s just stupid Alpha bullshit, but god… I needed to cum inside you. I needed to feel you completely.”

Rey feels herself blush, which is ridiculous after what they’ve just done together.

When his knot finally deflates and he pulls out, she feels the loss. Cum seeps out of her cunt and into the mattress. Ben stands up, opens the door, and disappears into the hallway. As he’s still naked, she panics for a second before remembering Leia’s self-induced coma.

Rey stands up too, her legs wobbly, feeling like she’s been ridden hard and put away wet. When Ben comes back with fresh sheets in hand, she’s sitting in the window seat, wrapped in her kimono. The window is open all the way to dissipate the smell of sex, but there's only a light breeze kissing her on this sultry August night. She listens to the crickets chirp while watching him as he makes her bed for her, which she finds sweet. She doesn’t tell him that she would have gladly rolled around in their stained sex sheets for weeks.

When he’s finished, she fully expects him to go back to his room, catching what few hours of sleep he can before his flight in the morning. But he surprises her. He’s always doing that.

“Come to bed,” he says, already underneath her flowery duvet.

She does.

It’s a tight fit, being a twin-sized mattress. He would obviously be more comfortable in his own king-sized bed.

“I’ll miss you too,” she finally says back, the words he said in the car, whispering them even though there’s no reason to. Even though they’ve made a ton of noise fucking each other’s brains out.

What she really wants to say is _I love you,_ but she doesn’t.

“I know,” he replies easily against her lips.

Rey closes her eyes for the kiss. She doesn’t open them again.

*

The room is bright canary yellow when Rey wakes up, silently cursing the birds chirping loudly with the window open. The candles have all been blown out, the string lights turned off. There’s a faint waft of clean laundry in the air. Ben must’ve sprayed her room with Fabreze. She wouldn’t be surprised if he threw her sheets into the washer last night too.

She glances around blearily, panic streaking through her when she doesn’t see him. Did he leave already?

She checks her phone on the nightstand. 6:23 AM.

Relief floods coolly through her veins. As she stands up, she stretches and yawns, exhausted and sore from the night before. God, it really happened. She’d had sex with Ben. Holy fuck.

She hops in the shower, the bathroom still steamy from when Ben must’ve had his. She turns the water on cold to wake herself up, vigorously scrubbing her body as quickly as she can, paying special attention to her cunt and mating gland. She scrubs her neck until it’s bright pink. If Leia asks, she’ll say it’s a sunburn.

A part of her is sad that all remnants of Ben have swirled down the drain. She wishes she could have spent a lazy morning in bed, languidly savoring his cum inside her like a cat that got the cream. Or at least, smell him in her room. But she understands why they have to be careful.

After she rubs herself down with a fluffy towel, she runs to her room to throw on denim shorts and a white v-neck tee, pulling her wet hair into a high bun. And because she’s paranoid, she spritzes a cloying amount of perfume all over herself until she’s absolutely certain she doesn’t smell anything like an Alpha—or even her own designation, at this point.

Before she heads downstairs, she slides on her Wayfarer sunglasses. Partly as a defense to the blinding light with her blooming hangover, and partly as a defense to anything her eyes might give away.

*

Rey’s always loved airports, even if she’s only been on a plane once. All the gates that lead to every exotic place you can imagine. Someday, when she feels what Holly Golightly called “the mean reds,” she vows to pack a single suitcase filled with both warm and light clothes, sunscreen and scarf, deciding her destination only when she gets to check-in.

But today’s not that day. With a year left of high school, the only traveling she’ll be doing is through the pages of whatever book is assigned for AP English. Which reminds her, she’s got only a few days left to read _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. She was never the scholar of the family, after all. That’s Ben. He’s always read his summer reading lists well ahead of schedule. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already read his textbooks for Brown.

Leia hands Rey an iced coffee from a kiosk. “You look like you might need this,” she says.

Rey smiles in appreciation. As she sips from it, she goes back to staring at Ben’s back as he talks to the receptionist at the check-in desk. Finally, he turns around and heads back over to them, boarding pass in his one hand, suitcase handle in the other.

“Okay, so, uh… I guess this is it,” he says, his voice a little gravelly.

Leia pulls him into a fierce hug. Ben stares at Rey over her shoulder. She can’t tell if he’s sad or just tired.

“Call me the second you land,” Leia says when she finally releases him. “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

Ben looks at Rey again. They’re standing a few feet away from each other. A respectable distance; not one of lovers. If Leia wasn’t here, would he kiss her goodbye? Or was the spell of last night broken in the light of day?

Ben closes the distance between them, enveloping her in a light hug that she barely feels. His arms feel awkward around her, as if she really is his sister.

“Good luck with your senior year,” he says as he pulls away seconds later.

“Yeah, thanks,” Rey hears herself answer hollowly.

His lips part, as if he wants to say something more. But then he presses them tightly together, giving his cousin and mother a nod of finality, of goodbye.

And then just like that, he’s walking away, his suitcase rolling past him as he looks forward into the future—one where he’ll change just like the leaves in the fall, shedding old friends and lovers for shiny new ones. He’ll meet Omegas who wear La Perla lingerie under their plaid skirts and have internships lined up at Vogue; who invite him for weekend brunches at their brownstones, summers in Italy and France; who wear Hermès scarves tied around their gazelle necks, one of them eventually punctured with his mating mark.

 _Look back look back look back_ , she silently chants.

But he doesn't.

As Leia drives them home from LAX, Rey stares up through tinted glass, at every plane streaking across the azure sky, dotted with palm trees.

*

The smell of French toast is wafting from the kitchen downstairs. This is something that Leia used to do every Sunday, back when they were a family, before Han started disappearing and she threw herself into her work. It brings with it the memory of Disney movies and trips to the science museum. They’re good memories. But when Leia softly rasps on Rey’s bedroom door, she doesn’t answer.

Even with the curtains drawn and the duvet pulled over Rey’s head, the sun is blinding. She wishes it was overcast. Pouring rain pounding the roof. Something to fit her melancholic mood, like the wild Yorkshire moors in a Brontë novel. Not weather like a spray-tanned reality show amped up on coke and Red Bull. Sleep brings the oblivion she needs to forget, but when she wakes up hours later, it all comes crashing back.

It’s a good memory, but right now, it hurts too much.

*

Three days come and go. The sun rises and sets, the same songs play. The earth spins and everything goes on like it has for millions of years. Like it will continue to do for millions of years after she’s gone.

*

Rey never gets around to reading _One Hundred Years of Solitude._

She’s too busy getting stoned out of her mind all day, starting from when she wakes up. She has a bowl of weed prepared even before she has a bowl of cereal. While she’s always smoked her fair share, she was never the “wake and bake” type. But that was before the emptiness of the house echoed, reverberating in her bones.

When she’d asked Kaydel to hook her up with whoever her new dealer was, it was a surprise to find out it was Blaze. She didn’t even know Kaydel still talked to him. She wonders if he’s still friends with Cassian. What he’s up to these days. If he’s still dating Jyn.

There’s only two days left before school starts, and already Rey’s off to a bad start. She can already see the failing grade circled red on her English paper.

If she had ever opened the book up, she would have discovered something. A folded note, tucked inside. And in beautiful penmanship, of one who studied calligraphy:

_I’ll never regret it._


	9. 💚

__

_He left no time to regret_   
_Kept his dick wet_   
_With his same old safe bet_   
_Me and my head high_   
_And my tears dry_   
_Get on without my guy_

_You went back to what you knew_   
_So far removed_   
_From all that we went through_   
_And I tread a troubled track_   
_My odds are stacked_   
_I go back to black_

_“Back to Black” by Amy Winehouse_

* * *

St. Augustine’s is your typical private Catholic school in Los Angeles. Spanish Revival architecture from the 1930s, still graceful even with cracks and graffiti bruising the white stucco walls. Students hanging around crumbling statues of saints, making idols of their phones. Cement parking lots paved over what was once a lemon grove eighty-three years ago. Every so often, weeds poke through the cracks, longing to reclaim the land, for a return to wildness unlike the savagery of gangland shootings mere blocks away.

Uniforms are required. For the girls: green tartan skirts often hemmed half an inch too high, white blouses as immaculate as the virginity they’re supposed to keep, green tartan tie, black stockings or knee-high socks, black dress shoes. For the boys: khaki trousers, white Oxford shirts, green tartan tie, black belts, black dress shoes. Black blazers, vests, and cardigans optional. No hoodies, no make-up, no unnatural hair colors, no visible piercings or tattoos. No orgies or pagan rituals. Shirts must be tucked in at all times.

The school year starts off with a Mass. The wooden pews are a sea of black, white, and green uniforms, the morning sun shining hazily into the chapel through the stained-glass windows, creating flickers of colorful lights on Rey’s skirt like a kaleidoscope. She’s sitting in the back, thinking more about the bagel she has stashed in her backpack than the liturgy or her upcoming classes. Kaydel is next to her, on her knees on the cushioned kneeler, her hands clasped piously, a pink rosary dangling from them. Rey rolls her eyes. Such a suck-up.

A few pews ahead, Rey spies Rose sitting next to her boyfriend Finn. At some point, Rose turns her head to glance around all the students, or maybe looking for someone specific. When she meets Rey’s eyes, they linger, but then she’s turning around, looking straight ahead again.

Jess sneaks into Rey and Kaydel’s pew, ducking low to avoid the sisters, sunglasses on and a Starbucks cup in hand. When she slumps next to Rey, she doesn’t take her sunglasses off.

“Sister Joan is going to kill you,” Rey says without looking at her.

“Sister Joan can suck my dick,” Jess replies, sipping from her latte.

“Getting suspended on the first day _would_ be a record for you…”

“Good. Least I could be at home in bed, waking up to Alex going down on me and not some sermon.”

Kaydel side-glares them. “Would you two shut up? I’m not getting in trouble because of you.”

“Sorry Mother Theresa.” Jess rolls her eyes, then leans into Rey’s space, whispering in her ear. “Maybe we should show Sister Joan Kay’s tweets about Alpha cocks.”

Rey bites her lip to keep from laughing at the mental image of the stern, elderly nun, wide-eyed and crossing herself repeatedly.

“So I heard about you and Poe.”

Rey sighs. “It seems everyone has.”

“My little Omega, all grown up,” Jess teases. “As a Beta, I’m going to live vicariously through you, so I’ll need all the details, of course.”

“Shhh,” one of the nuns hisses.

Jess holds a finger up to her lips in mock-agreement.

Rey isn’t Catholic, so she stays seated through Communion, even though she could go up to the altar and cross her arms for a blessing if she wanted. As Father Kennedy places a wafer upon Kaydel’s tongue, Jess and Rey put round white pills on theirs in a Communion of their own.

*

A warm, pleasant feeling buzzes through Rey’s body for the next few hours. She floats down the hallways, from classroom to classroom, down the printed-out schedule, until around calc fifth period. Even the strongest opiate is no match for the sobering effects of math.

Only one girl at a time is allowed to use the bathroom pass, so Rey takes it as Jess fakes a headache and asks to go to the nurse. Kaydel’s already in the bathroom, the frosted glass window slid up as she went ahead and lit the joint without them.

“You bitch,” Jess complains.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in NA?” Kaydel says. “Do you need us call your sponsor?”

“I’m not an addict,” Jess insists as she takes the joint from her. “My parents forced me into it. It was either go to rehab or have my trust fund frozen.” She takes two puffs, then passes it to Rey.

“Aren’t you afraid they’re going to cut you off if they find out you’re not sober?” Rey wonders.

Jess snorts. “That would require them being around. They’re in Hawaii right row.” She tilts her head. “…Or maybe Australia?”

“My mom’s on a cruise around the Caribbean with Fernando,” Kaydel says.

“Who’s Fernando?” Rey asks.

“Some twenty-one-year-old caterer she met.” Kaydel shrugs. “I checked out his Instagram. Every single photo has him with his shirt up, showing off his six-pack. Literally every single one.”

“Gross.” Jess wrinkles up her nose, then starts giggling. “Imagine if they get married and you have to start calling him ‘Daddy.’”

Kaydel rolls her eyes. Rey just stares out the window, at the manicured lawn and trees in the courtyard, the sun shimmering through the leaves, summer lingering. She wishes it were fall. Not here, but somewhere where the trees actually change colors. Ben will get to see that in Rhode Island. He’ll get to have the _Hocus Pocus_ type Halloween with girls who drink pumpkin spice lattes and wear Uggs.

“Don’t forget my party tonight,” Jess says.

This brings Rey back to her friends. “What party?”

“I texted you about it last week.”

The door swings open. Rey instinctively lowers the joint out the window, out of sight.

Rose stops shorts. Sometimes, when they pass each other in the halls, they’ll smile at each other, but that’s when Rey’s alone. Right now, she’s surrounded by two of the most popular girls in school, both of whom are viciously beautiful and beautifully vicious. Like prey, Rose keeps her head down, quietly entering one of the stalls.

Rey takes another hit from the joint, even though she already went twice. She passes it to Kaydel.

“You know, I’m kinda glad you’re not sober anymore,” Kaydel says to Jess, flicking out the ash. “I really missed your parties. I just hope this isn’t a cover for some Scientology seminar or some shit.”

Jess rolls her eyes. “I’m actually not a Scientologist anymore. I’m Buddhist.”

“Did you want us to bring anything?” Rey asks, ever the polite English girl, even if her accent’s faded and she’s more used to the sun now than the rain.

“Any hot guys you know,” Jess says. “Sucks Poe, Hux, and Ben are gone. Especially Ben.”

“I fucked him,” Kaydel proudly states, as if this is an achievement akin to winning a scholarship.

“Yeah, I know,” Jess rolls her eyes again. “You’ve only mentioned it, like, seventy-two fucking times.”

Rey doesn’t say, _I fucked him too_. What would her friends think, if they knew? That she not only slept with two guys in the span of three weeks, but her cousin?

The toilet flushes. Rose opens the stall door, walking over to the sink to wash her hands.

Kaydel brushes the joint out against the windowsill. “I should get back to Bio.”

“Yeah, I guess we should get back too.” Jess pulls out a glass bottle of Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle from her purse, spritzing it several times over her uniform to mask the smell of smoke. They begin to walk towards the door before turning around to look at Rey, who hasn’t moved from the wall. “You coming?”

“Go on without me,” Rey insists. “I got to pee.”

After they leave and the door stops swinging, Rey pushes away from the wall, walking slowly over to the porcelain sinks. She washes her hands right alongside Rose.

“You’re welcome to come, you know,” Rey says casually. “I don't think Jess would care.”

“Oh, no… that’s okay. I’ve got lots of homework to do.”

“It’s the first day.”

Rose smiles, but it’s tight-lipped. Polite, like they’re strangers, which Rey supposes they are. There’s a long pause as Rose pulls down a paper towel from the canister and blots her hands, throws it away. “It was nice to see you, Rey.”

“Yeah, you too.” And then Rey’s left alone in the empty bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror, wondering what Ben is doing right at this moment.

He’s been at Brown two weeks now. He’s probably gone to several parties already, maybe even slept with someone. A slutty sorority girl or—even worse—a hipster film chick. Someone she imagines looks like Zooey Deschanel. The kind you date, cycling together in vintage Schwinns with wicker baskets attached to the handlebars, baguettes sticking out, maybe a Shih Tzu. It’ll have a handwoven collar and some stupid literary name like Bukowski or Vonnegut.

He probably has an entirely new life. She wishes he had a Facebook or Instagram to stalk, but he’s too cool for social media. Online, he’s a ghost, which isn’t too far from what it feels like in real life.

The party at Jess’s tonight will be a welcome distraction. She hasn’t gone to a party since late May, right before classes ended. Kaydel goes to them more often, especially since Rey has started to become more reclusive. She doesn’t know if it’s her natural introverted personality or her increasing depression, but either way, Kaydel jokes that Rey’s going to end up going _Grey Gardens_ on her, holed up in a decrepit mansion with forty-seven cats.

On her way back to calc, she checks Bazine’s Instagram again, which she’s been obsessively looking at every day since Ben left.

So far there’s been only one photo of him, which was posted two days ago. He’s smiling at the camera with Bazine tucked under his arm, but as they take up the entirety of the shot, there’s no background to garner any context clues. Was it taken outside a classroom? At a party? In his dorm room? Right before they fucked?

There’s no written caption underneath, just a green heart emoji. What the fuck does that mean? If it’s _romantic_ love, it would be red… right?

None of her other photos give anything away. There’s a latte with a foam heart, a group of girls huddled together with matching duck faces and Brown sweatshirts (which makes no sense because they’re also wearing shorts), and two landscape shots of the sprawling campus and stately red-bricked buildings.

Ben hasn’t called her. Hasn’t even texted her. He’d called Leia once, which she mentioned over dinner a few nights ago. She relayed that he was settling in well, that he liked his classes and was thinking about joining the film club—all typical things a son would say to his mother, nothing deeper, nothing meaningful.

Rey knows why he hasn’t reached out to her. There’s nothing left to say. They’d agreed on one night, after all, and it wasn’t like he was going to change his plans for her. Rip up his plane ticket and stay at home, waiting around all day until she gets home from class just because they slept together one time. She knows this logically, but still, it hurts.

That night, he’d said it would be _all or nothing_. And it’s true, there’s no in-between for them. Would she have really wanted him to stay, giving up his dream of going to Brown? He’d only grow to resent her. Maybe not at first, but it would happen in time, until one day he’d wake up and look over at her and wonder if she had really been worth it. The inevitable fall-out from their family, their friends, looking at them like hillbillies on the _Jerry Springer Show_. They might have even gotten kicked out, cut off from their inheritance, and then where would they be?

No, it was better this way. One night to get it out of their system. And now they can move on.

The only problem is, now she wants more. Like someone who just got a taste of heroin. And now she’s going through withdrawals, unable to think of anything else but the way he tasted, the way he moved inside her. He’s ruined her for any other man. She thinks maybe she should just give up now and join a convent, definitely the one with St. Jude, the patron saint of the impossible, of desperate cases and lost causes.

*

While the first day back was pretty light, Rey does have some homework. She should be doing it, especially as she was one of only two in her English class not to hand in the summer essay. Instead, she’s blasting music as she leans in front of her mirror in a black bra and underwear, finishing her make-up. Her eyes are rimmed in smoky charcoal and her lips are gleaming with lip gloss. She ruffles up her hair, which is down, parted down the middle, waved with a curling iron.

After scrutinizing her body in the mirror, she goes over to her bed and looks at the dress splayed out, the one she bought at Nordstrom’s after school. Short, silver, skin tight, sequined. It’s a little New Year’s Eve, but she looks hot in it and she knows it. She shimmies it on, then slips on strappy black heels, wobbling a bit around her room before she gets a hang of it.

Her phone lights up with a text. Kaydel must be here already.

Rey picks it up from the bed, then nearly drops it.

 **Ben:** _Hey._

Her heart is pounding in her chest. She can actually feel it.

What the fuck?

Should she respond?

Rey wishes she had someone to confide in, so she could ask them what she should do. But while her friends are depraved enough to talk about how knots would work with anal right next to a table of innocent freshman, they might not be as open-minded about incest.

Worrying her bottom lip, she tells herself she’s being stupid. He’s just being nice. And they’re kind of friends again, right?

 _Hey_ , she types out, mimicking him. Period and all, which feels more curt, even though she knows Ben is just a stickler for proper grammar and punctuation.

 **Ben:** _How are you?_

How is she? She’s… she’s a fucking shipwreck. She’s already fucking up the school year, she’s been high the entire day, and she’ll probably get even higher before the night is over. Meanwhile, she has a chapter to read for Chem, two chapters of Fitzgerald’s _Tender Is the Night_ , and a French worksheet of conjugations to fill in.

Before she can think of how to respond, another text comes through.

 **Kay:** _I’m outside bitch_

There’s no period, but the horn blares outside to punctuate it. Rey grabs her purse and drops her phone inside, thinking it’s a good thing to leave Ben on read and not pathetically respond twelve seconds later.

Before leaving, she quickly scribbles a note for Leia on the notepad hanging on the fridge. _Went to study group, be back late_. She doesn’t text her, just in case Leia would text back that she has to stay home now that it’s a school night. She knows Leia will be in bed by the time she gets back, likely knocked out with wine and sleeping pills, so she doesn’t have to take along a change of clothes or any books on pretense.

*

The night feels alive. There’s an electric current pulsing through the atmosphere, lighting up the streetlamps and neon signs as Kaydel’s Maserati zooms down the streets, every traffic light turning green. It’s still hot, but with the convertible down, they don’t need the AC, the wind whipping against their bare skin, strands of their hair flying everywhere. A periwinkle dusk has descended, and while there aren’t any visible stars, you don’t need them, not when you have the glittering lights of the city.

Jess’s house in the Hollywood Hills is modernist, like most mansions around there. California is still young and the land lacks the roots that the East Coast has, let alone the rest of the world. But while there’s no ivy crawling up weathered stone, there’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the cliffs and a wide infinity pool hanging over the edge, illuminated in purple and blue underwater lights.

The driveway is full of Bentleys, BMWs, Mercedes, Ferraris, all looped around a stone fountain in a facsimile of some Greek or Roman statue. Kaydel parks her car next to Mitaka’s highlighter-yellow Lamborghini, and together they walk to the front doors, which are wide open with hip-hop pulsing out.

Half of the senior class seems to be here. But most she doesn’t recognize. They might be from Immaculate Heart or Stratford, or maybe they’re just random kids who heard the music and showed up. Most have red Solo cups in their hands, but the posh ones have Martini or rocks glasses, taking advantage of the full bar in the living room.

Rey follows Kaydel to the kitchen. There, they pour themselves foamy lager from the keg, then proceed to sip from it as they look around, waiting for the moment where it feels like the night has properly begun.

After a few minutes, Kaydel spies someone she knows, the daughter of a family friend that she had sleepovers with at eight years old or something. Rey stands with her as they catch up, but it’s kind of awkward and she feels left out, so eventually she wanders away, meandering from room to room, sipping from her cup for something to do.

She passes by clusters of people talking, laughing, flirting. Some are making out, even though there’s clearly more than enough bedrooms to do that in private. A few guys look her up and down, but she quickly looks away and keeps walking, hoping her body language flashes not interested like a neon sign. There’s quite a number of Alphas here, but none of them smell good, their scents doused with douchebag cologne and soured with stale beer. There’s also a few Omegas around, and it shocks her to smell that two of them are mated. She wonders if they’re still in high school, or if they’ve dropped out to become little wives to their Alphas. It’ll only be a matter of time now before they’re swapping out tequila for formula, changing the name on their college fund to those of their kids, and spending the rest of their lives living vicariously through them like some creepy stage mom.

A flashback of Rey begging Ben to bite her as he fucked her flashes through her mind. She’d be lying if she said it was completely in the heat of the moment, because a deep-seated part of her still wants that. She’s never wanted anything as much as Ben. She knows it’s not healthy, to have her entire world revolve around him, but aren't there worse things in life than to want to be in love? And why does she have to have goals, ten-year plans in bullet points, when all she wants to do is travel, take photos, and just live? She could do that alone, but the Eiffel Tower and Taj Mahal and plates of pasta in Rome are so much more enjoyable when you have someone to share it with.

If Ben had loved her back, they could have seen the world together when he became an archeologist. She can see him standing in the sun, dressed in white linen and khaki, tan and rugged with their travels. Living out of mismatched suitcases, their passports covered in colorful stamps of exotic places, free to be a couple where no one knows they’re related. Or even if they did, no one would care.

Rey slips outside and sits down on one of the cushioned chaise lounges, watching the city lights flicker in the distance. A few kids are in the pool, but otherwise it’s pretty empty. She smells weed—the good kind, not the skunky shit. God, she wishes she were stoned.

She looks over to the left.

There must be something in the air, some sort of astrological alignment, because for the second time that night, her past has collided with her present.

Lying a few chaise lounges away is Cassian Andor.

Rey adjusts herself in the chair, aiming for the most attractive position. She pulls down her dress to show off her slight cleavage, then smooths down her hair but then worries it’s too flat, so she ruffles it again.

“Hey stranger,” she finally calls out, like she just saw him last week and not nearly two years ago.

Cassian turns his head, then does a double-take. She can tell the exact moment when he recognizes her, his dark eyes warm and his smile wide, looking away into the distance for a second before looking back at her as if he can’t believe she’s really there.

“Why hello,” he says, getting up and walking over. He sits in the chaise lounge next to her on her left, leaving forward on his knees. “Long time no see. How have you been?”

God, she’s forgotten how much she loves his Mexican accent. It’s just as sexy as Ben’s deep voice and the way he says his ‘o’s. “Not bad. Yourself?”

“Eh, I’m okay.” He shrugs. “But it’s beautiful night and now I’m here with you, so things are looking up.”

Rey smiles, biting her bottom lip. Cassian hands her the joint, which she happily accepts, their fingers brushing. As she takes a long drag, it hits her instantly, making this moment feel even more surreal.

“I was just thinking about you,” she lies. “Wondering what you’ve been up these past few years.”

“Same old. High school and all that.”

“Do you know Jess?”

“Who?”

“Jessika Pava. She lives here.”

“Oh. No, I came with some friends.”

Rey looks around. “Where are they?”

“Probably off somewhere, getting into trouble.”

“And you’re not?”

Cassian smiles. “Maybe I am.”

He takes a drag from the joint as he looks at her. Rey looks away, at palm leaves gently swaying with a breeze, illuminated by the flood lights of the backyard.

“And where’s Jyn?” she wonders casually.

There’s a pause. She sees the smoke drift out over the pool as he exhales. “San Francisco with her father. He got an engineering job up there.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Rey thinks she genuinely sounds it, too. Maybe she should be an actress after all.

“It’s okay. You know”—he shrugs—“life goes on.”

“Yeah.”

They fall into a silence like they’ve been pushed over the edge of the cliffs, down into the darkness. Rey wonders how to climb back up, what to say. She wishes the soundtrack to this moment wasn’t shit hip-hop, as whoever is in charge of DJ’ing the party has pretty awful music taste. She bets it’s Mitaka.

“Hey, did you want to get out of here?” Cassian beats her to it.

Rey doesn’t even hesitate.

*

Leia’s home.

Her Audi is parked in the driveway. Rey assures Cassian it’s okay to park next to it and not on the street. After all, she doesn’t want any nosy neighbors to call the cops on his beat-up ’90s Honda Civic and its spray-painted driver’s side door, thinking that he’s there to break into houses or something.

They quietly sneak inside and up the carpeted steps. It’s about 11, but she’s not sure if Leia is asleep yet. Down the hall, the door to the master bedroom is closed, but there’s a warm light glowing underneath. She can picture her aunt cozied up with her tablet, a glass of red wine on her nightstand and wire-rimmed glasses perched low on her nose as she reads a Harlequin romance, the left side of the bed cold and empty.

Rey’s just about to pass Ben’s door to go to her own when something streaks through her. Something red and thrilling. A very dangerous idea.

She opens the door to Ben’s room.

Cassian follows close behind her. She turns on the small lamp on the bedside table, then sits on the made-up bed, wondering what to do next.

Cassian’s glancing around. “So this is your room?”

Rey nods. It’s not so far-fetched. There’s nothing overtly masculine about it, no seedy posters of swimsuit models or beer advertisements hanging on the walls. No, Ben’s too classy for that.

Cassian wanders over to the shelves, where Ben has his DVD and Blu-ray collection alphabetized. “Wow, you really like movies, huh?”

“Yeah,” she says, and it’s not a lie. “We can watch something if you’d like?”

The second it’s out of her mouth, it feels wrong. Which is ridiculous. After all, it’s just a movie. She’s sure Ben’s watched a number of these with his past girlfriends. He’s probably watching something right now in his dorm with some random Omega.

“Maybe later,” Cassian says, then sits down on the bed next to her. He pulls out the half-smoked joint from earlier his wallet, the paper crumpled. Something else falls out.

Rey picks it up. It’s a small bag with white powder in it. Cassian takes it from her.

“What’s that?” she asks.

“It’s for a friend,” he says. “Blaze gave it to me to give to her, but I didn’t see her at the party.”

“Oh.” Rey nods. “Is it coke?”

Cassian nods.

She watches him light up the joint, but that little bag is enticing her more. Maybe it’s the illicitness of it, or maybe it’s the promise of the euphoric high that she imagines is close to the Adderall Kaydel would share with her every so often. “Can I have some?”

He freezes, the joint held up to his lips.

“I mean… I can pay for it. I’m good for it.”

“That’s not it,” he says. “I just didn't know you did coke.”

“I don’t. I just wanted to try it. Just once, I swear.”

There’s a long pause, and Rey can see Cassian’s thinking it over, whether this is a good idea or not. It definitely isn’t, but she’s seventeen and if now’s not the time to make stupid mistakes, then when is?

Eventually he nods, and then he’s looking around for something to pour it on. Rey stands up and goes over to Ben’s film collection. She could pull any one at random, but instead she picks out Sid & Nancy. It seems fitting.

Cassian shakes out a small amount of coke onto the DVD, then uses his debit card to organize it into two neat little lines. He passes it to her. “You sure about this?

Rey nods. “It’s just a little bit, right?”

“Yeah.”

She takes a deep breath, then lowers her head to inhale it through her right nostril, pressing her left. It burns as it goes up, but a few seconds later, she feels it: a rush of euphoria.

Cassian snorts the other line.

Rey doesn’t know why she was so melancholy earlier. She knows her friends probably think she’s such a drag, no wonder they rarely invite her out nowadays. She resolves to be more fun, to do more exciting things and be the kind of person everyone gravitates to. And what does she have to be morose about? It’s a brand new school year and it’s only been one day, there’s plenty of time to pick up her grades and get into a good university anywhere she wants to go and even if she doesn’t go to college that’s fine too, she has plenty of money in her trust fund and she can go see the world and take photos of every beautiful thing she sees and publish them in chapbooks because she’s really more the artistic type than academic, all great artists are, F. Scott Fitzgerald spent more time writing plays for Yale than he did doing homework and got kicked out for it but everyone knows how that turned out, and she _knows_ she’s a good photographer, she even won that contest freshman year and she thinks she has the potential to really be something, she can feel it, greatness coursing through her, the entire world laid out in front of her, waiting. And who cares about Ben, he had his chance and if he wants to get back with Bazine or fuck every single girl in Rhode Island then so be it, let him make his bed and try to lie in it, she doesn’t care, there’s plenty of guys who would love to be with her, who are just as hot as Ben, who are just as interesting and exciting and all great artists had lovers, many lovers, she’ll be like a libertine drinking absinthe and smoking Gauloises in cafés, making love in a bed on the floor in a 19th century Parisian apartment with a darkroom of her 35 mm monochrome photos criss-crossing on clotheslines, capturing a life well lived.

Cassian’s talking about something but she doesn’t catch it, something about a movie he saw or is he asking her to see it with him? She stares at his lips as they move. And then she’s kissing him and it’s nice, really nice, and while he’s a Beta he entices her just as much as an Alpha, and who’s to say only Alphas could really be the other half of Omegas? That sounds like some chauvinistic right-wing bullshit, Alphas could be with Alphas, and Omegas could be with Omegas, and Omegas could be with Betas and maybe this could work out, maybe it was fate she saw him again tonight and not him just looking to deal coke.

Soon their clothes are off and the light is turned out.

Rey’s lying on her stomach, her ass slightly pulled up as Cassian leans over her, fucking her from behind. As her nose is shoved into Ben’s sheets, she smells him, and she’d be lying if she said her orgasm was from Cassian alone.

*

They fuck twice in a row.

He leaves sometime in the middle of the night, as Rey can’t risk Leia seeing him in the morning. And besides, she’s got school in only a few hours.

She takes a shower right after, scrubbing the night away with lavender body wash, then pulling on her dad’s oversized Technical College of Tattooine sweatshirt and yoga pants. She cranks up the AC, makes an igloo out of her covers, then pulls out her phone.

 _I fucked someone else_ , she types out. Hits send.

A few minutes pass.

Then, she sees it. Three dots, moving. Moving. Moving.

They stop and start, stop and start. Ten minutes go by like this until they stop for good.

Rey doesn't remember drifting off, but the next thing she knows, her alarm is going off, blaring through her dreamless sleep. She turns it off, then looks at her messages.

Nothing.

*

It’ll be three weeks later, late September, when she finally gets a response.

She’s sitting on the grass in the courtyard during lunch fourth period, idly scrolling down her Instagram feed when she sees it. A photo of Bazine smiling at the camera, her hair splayed out like she’s lying down, and Ben beside her, kissing her cheek.

And under it:

_Better back together._

_Red heart emoji._


	10. In a Lonely Place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been waiting to get to this opening scene since Ch. 2. I get to go all-out LA noir à la Raymond Chandler.

_Know that when you leave_   
_Know that when you leave_   
_By blood and by me, you walk like a thief_   
_By blood and by me, I fall when you leave_

_“Possibility” by Lykke Li_

* * *

For weeks, the Santa Anas have been blowing in hot and dry from the desert, down desolate mountains, howling with the coyotes before tumbling over sands and picking up grains you could find embedded deep in your hair, curled with the heat. It pounds on windows and doors like a jealous ex-lover. At the dinner table, wives stab their roasts imagining it’s their husbands, convinced that the smell of perfume on their shirts is Chanel No. 5 and not just the faint traces of desert wildflowers.

The wind whispers things like a witch’s spell. It brings out your darkest desires, your worst impulses, your true nature. Gin joints fill, jail cells fill, madhouses fill, cemeteries fill. Drinks get re-filled, suitcases get packed, guns get loaded, nooses get tied. Preachers are caught with prostitutes, while housewives leave their children in supermarket parking lots. People go missing, sometimes by choice.

It can make a man fall off the wagon, even if he’s got a purple nine-month AA chip in his pocket. It can make him forget a comfortable life in a beautiful home with a wife and son, gambling away what little was left in his bank account, begging, borrowing, stealing until there’s nobody left to turn to but the most wretched hive of scum. It can make him unable to look at himself in the dirty mirror above the bathroom sink in a run-down, infested motel where rooms are rented by the hour. It can make his heart give out under the crushing weight of it all. That is, if a bullet doesn’t pierce it first.

Anything can happen on nights like these. You need to watch your back, listen to your gut, the goosebumps, the bumps in the night. Be good, stay at home. Draw the curtains, unplug the phone. Because when the phone rings, it’s rarely ever good news.

*

It’s a Tuesday, late October, when the call comes.

Rey’s curled up on the couch under a throw in the living room, her hands wrapped around a mug of microwaved apple cider, watching _Pan’s Labyrinth_ on the widescreen TV. It rings four times from the white cordless in the kitchen, the landline kept only for emergencies, before Rey hears Leia pick up. She figures it’s a telemarketer, or one of Leia’s aides unable to reach her on her cell, not giving it another thought as she turns back to the movie.

“ _Your spirit shall forever remain among the humans,_ ” the faun tells the remorseful Ofelia. “ _You shall age like them, you shall die like them, and all memory of you shall fade in time._ ”

It’s then she hears a crash.

Rey rushes into the kitchen to find Leia on her knees, clutching the cordless to her chest, her face scrunched up and mouth open like she’s gasping for breath, broken glass and pasta sauce everywhere, tears dripping down onto the cold, hard Saltillo tile floor.

And she knows.

Somehow, without words, she knows. She can feel it, just as much as she can feel the wind whipping against her skin like a caress when she sits out on the roof in the middle of the night smoking, strands of her hair flying everywhere.

Han is never coming home.

There’ll never be another apology. She’ll never come downstairs one morning to find him sitting at the kitchen table in front of a plate of scrambled eggs and the newspaper, as if he’d been there all along. There’ll never be another haphazardly-wrapped Christmas present from him underneath the artificial tree. The same old joke from Leia that gift bags were invented for people like him. The half-built PC and ’72 Chevy Chevelle in the garage will never run again. The white sheets will remain over them, as if they too are ghosts now.

That night, as Rey opens her bedroom door, she can hear Leia’s sobs drifting down the hall, echoing in a house that had always been empty but somehow feels even emptier now. She hadn’t checked the papers, but she wouldn’t be surprised if there were reports of black holes spontaneously opening up in the middle of suburban houses all across America, swallowing people up and leaving behind a void that no science or philosophy could fill.

She makes her way to the garage.

Pulls off the sheet.

Opens the driver’s side door of the blue Chevelle, the hinges squeaking.

Sits down in the worn, tan leather seat, staring straight ahead, at the dust motes floating in the lone yellow beam of the desk lamp on the workbench.

She sits there for six hours.

When she finally goes back upstairs, she passes the front door, which has been blown wide open by the wind, clanging rhythmically against the doorframe.

She leaves it open.

*

Rey doesn't get up for school.

Even before she opens her eyes to the world, she feels the infinite weight of loss and despair crushing her to the mattress. Even before she's fully pulled out of the bottomless black sea of a dreamless sleep, she feels the sadness like drops of water on her eyelashes.

She doesn’t fight it. She doesn’t struggle to get up, get dressed, put concealer under her eyes. Doesn't bother to go down to the kitchen and eat something. She hadn't had dinner, and she doubts Leia did either. She hadn’t even drunk anything in something like ten hours, her lips chapped and tongue swollen, feeling like she’s swallowed sawdust.

She must have moved on autopilot—the last remnants of her biological instinct for survival kicking in—because the next thing she knows, she’s gulping down cool water from the tap in the bathroom. And then she’s making her way back to her room, pulling the covers over her head, angry at the sun for being so bright on such a day, as if the world isn’t ending, as if we’re not in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, as if humans haven’t ruined every fucking thing they’ve ever touched, including each other.

*

She’d find out later that no one knows how long he’d been out there.

Not long enough to be picked clean by scavengers, bones bleached by the sun, but long enough where a closed casket or cremation was suggested by the morgue. His pockets had been emptied, a different kind of scavenger having gotten to him.

Every time Rey closes her eyes, she can’t help see the images behind them, burned on her eyelids like a screen burn. A body slumped out in the middle of the Mojave Desert, the sands pale and cool in the moonlight. Dark blood spreading out on a white shirt in the pattern of a butterfly like a Rorschach inkblot.

What a lonely place. What a lonely way to die.

He was treated like he was trash, like he was nothing, like he wasn’t someone who had people who loved him. Like he didn’t get up every day with secret hopes in his heart, no matter how improbable they were. Like he didn’t always give homeless people money without making a big deal about it, or that he didn’t always take the pickles off his hamburgers. Like he didn’t once give her a kitten when she was ten, shortly after her mother died and Luke fucked off.

BB, she’d named him. An orange and white scruff of fur who loved to lie on her chest and purr, his eyes closed as he rested his head on his paws over her heart.

Rey runs her hands down her face.

She can’t think about this. Not now. This is a dark rabbit hole that she doesn’t know she can climb back out of.

The living room is a sea of black. Black dresses, black shirts, black trousers. A few people are wearing navy, white, and gray, but mostly black. Rey’s wearing a black knee-length dress Leia had bought for her at Nordstrom’s because she hadn’t had one, her old dress from her mother’s funeral long-ago grown out of and donated to Goodwill. She pairs it with black stockings and Ben’s black hoodie, which is wrapped around her body like a security blanket. It hangs off her even more now than it did months ago.

She’s sitting in the absinthe-green velvet armchair in the corner of the living room by the bookshelf, spacing out with the din of quiet condolences and mindless chatter. The sea sways and parts, sways and parts. It comes back together.

When it parts again, Ben is standing there.

He’s staring straight into her, and even from the distance of across the room, continents away, she can see the sadness in his lines. His suit is ironed, his hair is perfectly coiffed, but she sees the purple circles underneath his eyes that she’s sure matches her own. His hands are jammed into his trouser pockets, his shoulders hunched with the weight of so many things left undone and unsaid, forever.

Rey stares back.

They exist here, in this in-between space, alone together, the rest of the room and even the world fading away until it’s just them now.

She’s not sure how much time passes. If time even exists anymore.

But then he’s looking away, his face morphing into someone she doesn’t recognize. He’s saying something to Bazine as she hands him a rocks glass of scotch, a long-stemmed glass of white wine in her own hand, looking like she’s at a cocktail party instead of a wake.

He becomes just another stranger in the room.

*

There’s a buffet on every surface of the kitchen, everything from catered aluminum tins of restaurant-quality food to handmade dishes wrapped in cellophane, but Rey can’t muster the energy to eat anything. Her stomach is cramping and growling as she lies on her bed, but she ignores it.

She slips her headphones on. Hits play to drown out the noise downstairs.

After a while, a text buzzes, bringing her out of her drifting trance like a wipe-out.

 **Cassian:** _did u want me to come over?_

Rey chews on her bottom lip, thinking about it. Does she?

She’s halfway through typing “No, that’s okay” when she realizes that she’s out of weed.

 **Rey:** _Can you come by tonight?_

 **Cassian:** _sure, 8 ok?_

 **Rey:** _Yeah._

 **Rey:** _Could you bring some cereal with you?_

She knows it’s highly unlikely any federal agencies are spying on the texts of a seventeen-year-old girl, but she plays it safe anyway.

 **Cassian:** _what happened to the 1/8 of Lucky Charms I brought u yesterday?_

 **Rey:** _Ate it all._

 **Cassian:** _k, I’ll head over to Blaze’s_

There’s a pause, the three dots moving. She’s already gone back to her music when it buzzes again.

 **Cassian:** _can’t wait to see you_

 **Rey:** _Me too._

And she means it… though not for the reason he thinks. She feels kind of bad, using him like this. Getting $50 of weed for free. But he’s her boyfriend. It’s a strange feeling, even after seven weeks now, to call someone her boyfriend. Her first, not counting the three hours she dated Jamie Evans in sixth grade.

She’s halfway through a song when she opens her eyes, to find the face of her father staring down at her. For a second she thinks she’s dreaming, but then she notices the button-up black Hawaiian shirt. It’s covered in red flowers and green leaves, oversized like he’d borrowed it from a larger man, and Rey realizes he probably had.

She sits up, pulling her headphones off. Crosses her arms and scowls. Luke sits down on the bed, but she instantly moves away.

She’s determined not to say anything, because he doesn’t deserve her words. Seven years of silence, sporadic phone calls not counting when nothing of importance was ever said. Not even a single apology.

She can sit here like this all day. But with a sinking feeling, she realizes so can he. He’s practically a monk after all.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity but has probably only been five minutes, she relents. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to see if you were okay. If you needed anything.”

“Oh, like a father?”

Luke nods encouragingly, not understanding her sarcasm. She’s not surprised. He doesn’t know her at all.

“You’re about…”—Rey looks away, pretending to think—“eight years and three months too late. But thanks anyway.”

“Rey—”

“Leave me alone.”

Luke sighs. “If that’s what you want sweetheart.”

“ _Don’t_.”

It hangs in the air, echoing in the silence as Luke looks down. And then he nods. For a brief second, Rey feels kind of bad, but then she closes those gates, locking them shut. A line of deadbolts all the way down and chains wrapped around.

He gets up and does what he does best, which is walk away.

She wants him to turn around. She wants him to come back. She wants him to force her to talk to him—to cry, yell, _anything_. Not just give up, and so easily too.

*

The underwater lights in the pool are turned on, the water glowing aquamarine. It’s sometime in the middle of the night, probably 2 or 3 AM, if Rey cared about checking the time.

Southern California never gets cold, but October brings a chill when darkness falls. The old mercury thermometer nailed to the siding of the house reads fifty-nine degrees—hoodie and flannel weather—but Rey’s only wearing her bra and underwear. She couldn’t be bothered to put on her bikini, her jeans and tee collapsed in a heap on the stone tile. She couldn’t even be bothered to turn on the pool heater. She’s numb to the cold. She’s numb all over.

As she floats in the water, her hair is spread out in all directions as she stares up at the few stars she can see through all the lights and smog.

She imagines she's drowned, that this is what death is like. Weightless, a sky full of twinkling stars, a return to the universe. She sees herself as Ophelia. Her father—her true father, in her heart—dead, her former lover not in love with her. All alone, nothing left, the agony driving her mad until all she could hear was the call of the water, the void.

Rey closes her eyes and holds her breath, letting herself sink as much as possible. But after a minute, her lungs betray her, taking in a huge gulp of air. That damn biological instinct again.

She smells smoke.

Campfires and cigarettes.

Ben.

Rey stops floating and looks over to where she feels the pull, that invisible string that she sometimes wishes would snap.

He’s sitting on the edge of one of the lounge chairs, his knees spread apart with his elbows leaning on them, the cigarette burning orange as he brings it to his lips. A tuft of his waves has fallen in front of his face, his eyes dark, haunted, watching her.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Rey says. It’s the first thing that comes to her mind. Out of all the things she could have said—all the countless things she’s imagined these past two months when she saw him again—she says something so inane and obvious.

Ben shrugs. “Figured it’s a good time to start.”

A few minutes pass as both of them drift in the silence. And then he’s flicking the cigarette butt away, into the thick bushes on the side of the backyard.

“That’s how wildfires start, you know,” Rey says.

Ben stands up. She thinks he’s going to turn around and go back inside, but then he’s shrugging off his hoodie and pulling off his shirt. Her heart bellyflops in her chest like a bad dive, reminding her it still exists, she’s still alive.

God, he’s even more beautiful in the moonlight.

Rey stares at the trail of wiry dark hair on his stomach as he unzips his jeans and pulls those down too. When she looks up again, he’s staring at her, clad only in his black boxer-briefs.

Rey sinks down, the water covering her mouth, but she doesn’t look away. She would have, before. But they’ve already fucked. He already knows how she feels about him, even if she’s never said it out loud. Surely he knows by the way she kissed him. If their souls are made the same, then he must know. How could he not?

Ben walks over to the pool. Slides down into the water, ripples of the waves lapping against Rey’s skin, goose-bumped from more than the cold.

He swims over to her, the ends of his hair wet, brushing against his wide shoulders, his freckled skin pale in the glow of the aquamarine lights.

Rey drifts backwards, away. “Where’s Bazine?”

Ben stops where he is, in the middle of the deep end. “At her parents' house.”

“Why not stay here?”

He looks away, at some point in the middle distance. “She’s not family.”

It stings just like the chlorine in her eyes and nose. A reminder that she is, in fact, family. A reminder of why they can never be.

“Well, maybe someday she will be, yeah?” It sounds bitter and harsh, even to her own ears.

Ben looks back at her, his eyebrows furrowed. “So how’s school?”

Rey laughs. Seriously? That’s what he wants to talk about? “Fine,” she lies. “How’s college?”

“Yeah, good. I’m only in Intro to Archeology, but I’m liking it.” And then, like he just remembered: “I started a film club. Can you believe they didn't have one before?”

As Rey treads around in a circle, Ben follows her. It’s like they’re two orbiting planets, in the same solar system but destined never to meet.

“Fascinating,” she says.

“We just had a showing of _The Royal Tenenbaums._ ” His lips quirk. “I thought of you.”

Rey remembers watching it with Ben a few years ago. Margot, the adopted Tenenbaum, telling her brother, “ _I think we’re just going to have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that._ ”

It had worked out for them, in the end. But they weren’t really related. Ben and her are. As much as she wishes Luke wasn’t her father sometimes, to the best of her knowledge, he is. It’s just something she has to live with. Just like how every man in her life is gone.

Except Cassian.

But it’s only a matter of time before that’s over. She suspects he’s still not over Jyn, just by the weird way he gets whenever Blaze has brought her up. But who is she to judge? She’s not over Ben. She doesn’t think she ever will be. California is more likely to fall into the Pacific.

“I missed you.” He says it quietly, solemnly. There’s nothing indecent about the words themselves, a family member missing another. But the way he says it…

“I doubt that,” she says. “Not with Bazine’s tongue down your throat.”

There’s a heavy silence as Ben stares at her. She’s not looking at him, but she can feel it.

“And you’re dating what’s-his-name. Kevin?”

“ _Cassian_.”

“Whatever.” He shrugs one shoulder, looking away. “You fucked Calvin in my bed.”

For a second, Rey’s so taken back, she stops treading water. She sinks a few inches before pulling herself back up, her heart thumping madly, thinking it’s having a brush with death. “How did you know?”

Ben laughs. It’s hard and cold. “I’m an Alpha, remember? Betas might not have much of a smell, but they still do. Not to mention his liberal use of Axe body spray. And when he came by tonight… I _knew_. It was all over my fucking sheets.”

Rey shrugs one shoulder with a feigned nonchalance. “So? Change them. There’s plenty in the linen closet.”

A muscle in his clenched jaw jumps. “I’m not playing these childish fucking games. You know, it’s times like these I realize how much you’re still in high school.”

Rey narrows her eyes. “Suddenly you’re so mature because you’re in college? You’re a freshman, for fuck’s sake.”

“And yet you fucked a guy only two weeks after we were together. In my bed. Real fucking mature.”

“Why do you care? We’re not together, you made that perfectly clear. You said it would be all or nothing… and you chose _nothing_. You chose _nothing_ when you got on that plane. You chose _nothing_ when you got back with Bazine.”

“ _Because you fucked another guy!_ ” he yells. It seems to echo throughout the backyard, the neighborhood, maybe even Los Angeles.

“That night...” His voice is quieter now, calmer, though it’s clear his control is strained. “It meant more to me than you know.” He pauses, pressing his lips together. “I wanted to be with you. I wanted to be with you _so fucking badly_. But I was also trying to be realistic. I was going off to college for four years, 2,000 miles away, and you…” He sighs. “You’re still in high school. I want to give you a chance to be normal. To be happy with someone else. And not just because I'm your cousin. But even knowing this, believing I did the right thing… telling myself I would be happy if you were to find someone else… it fucking _gutted me_ when you told me. And only two weeks after.”

“Ben…”

“I couldn’t even think about touching someone else. I hadn’t since Kaydel, since my rut. Since I first kissed you.”

“But… I saw you with Bazine. At the bonfire…”

He looks confused. “We were just talking.”

“But you’re with her now?”

Ben looks down guiltily. “It’s better this way.”

“So you get to fucking decide that?” Streaks of red-hot rage shoot through her bloodstream, warming her like whiskey. “I don’t get a say?”

Ben just stares at her sadly.

Rey chuckles harshly. Swims over to the ladder, her foot on the second rung before suddenly feeling a lurch, but before she can hit the water, she finds herself in Ben’s arms, his lips crashing onto hers. Her mouth opens instantly for him just as she knew it would, her legs wrapping around his waist just like she knew they would, and she lets him in, lets him break down every single wall she’s spent months building brick-by-brick, holding onto him so tightly as if she’ll drown if she were to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thank you to Princess Leila for this lovely art!


	11. Cherry Coke and Arsenic

_Come on skinny love, just last the year_  
_Pour a little salt, we were never here_

_"Skinny Love" by Bon Iver_

* * *

Rey hadn’t realized she’d been dead all these months.

But right now, in the turquoise water underneath the full moon, she’s being brought back to life. Ben’s hands are warming her cold flesh, his lips resuscitating her. Cautiously, her heart begins to beat again. Blood rushes through her veins and she can feel _everything_ —the water, the wind, the heat from his skin. Even the metal rungs of the ladder digging into her back. She doesn’t mind it—just as long as he keeps touching her, she’ll take any kind of pain. Just like the tattoo on her ribs and the cartilage piercings in her ear. She’ll take the pain, if she wants it badly enough.

Ben pulls away, his chest heaving. She thinks he’s just catching his breath, but when she goes to kiss him again, he turns his head to the side.

“Rey… I can’t do this.”

It takes a few seconds for his words to reach her through her haze. “What? Are you serious?”

His hands move to her thighs. They linger for a few seconds, long enough for Rey to think maybe he’s changed his mind. But then he’s gently pushing them down, off his waist. Rey clings even more to his neck, feeling unmoored, but he removes her arms too, leaving her to drown.

She can’t do anything but watch as he drifts backwards, back into the middle of the pool, which might as well be an ocean for the amount of distance between them now.

“Why do you keep doing this?” she explodes.

Ben just stares at her. She’s so sick of him staring at her like a kicked puppy when he’s the one who hurts her.

“Are you a fucking sadist or something?” she continues, her voice growing louder, not even caring if she wakes up Leia. “Is this something that gets you off, fucking with people’s feelings, leading them on, pretending to—”

“Despite what you think, I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. It’s why I didn’t want to start this thing in the first place.”

“A little late for that now, don’t you think?”

“I know.”

“Why did you kiss me?” she half-demands, half-pleads. “Tell me why.”

“That was a mistake.” She sees him wince right after he says it.

“A mistake,” she repeats hollowly, the numbness beginning to seep back in.

“A moment of weakness.”

“Like that’s any fucking better.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

Ben closes his eyes, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what, exactly? Kissing me? Or fucking me in the first place?”

“Kissing you. Telling you things I shouldn't have.” The water swishes as he runs a hand through his hair, which is mostly dry except for the ends that brush the surface. For a few seconds she’s hypnotized by the beads that drip down the wisps of his waves, before his next words sober her up. “I have a _girlfriend_ , Rey. That shouldn't have happened. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to lead you on.”

“You didn’t. I always knew _exactly_ who you were. A fuckboy.”

She can’t tell if Ben’s wincing from the term or narrowing his eyes at the insult. “I’m not going to lie and say I’m a saint, but I never cheated on anyone I was dating. Until now, that is.”

If Rey wasn’t treading water, she’d slow-clap. “Maybe you never cheated, but I know how you and Bazine got together in the first place,” she says. “What you did to Poe.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He told me. About the threesome. You dating Bazine right after.”

“He was cool with it. You don’t think I asked him?”

“Well, he might've said he was, but he wasn’t.”

“Did he also tell you that when he was dating Baz, he was getting his dick sucked on the down-low by some guy in this shitty Daft Punk-wannabe band? FN-2187 or some shit. So if you’re going to call _anyone_ a ‘ _fuckboy_ ’ here…”

Rey didn’t know this. She’s kind of shocked, though she doesn’t know why. It’s not like it’s _that_ shocking. She knew Poe was bi, but she only ever saw him with other girls. She assumed he was repressing that part of himself, holding out for Ben or something. Not to mention it tears down her image of him as the sad, fucked-over ex. She feels incredibly stupid.

“Fine, you’re not a fuckboy,” Rey says. “You’re just an asshole.”

“I know,” he says. “And I know you don’t believe me, but I want you to be happy, Rey. I really do.”

“Are you happy?”

“No, but I’m trying to be.”

“With Bazine.”

Ben doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to.

“What would she think, if she knew you just had your tongue down my throat?”

“She’d dump me. Again.”

“And you don’t want that.” It’s a statement. A fact they both know.

“It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it’s… easy with her. Someone to talk to. I don’t want to lose that. I haven't really made any other friends out there yet.”

“And it’s someone to stick your dick inside, when you need to. Wouldn’t want to lose that either, huh?”

Ben looks away, at some point in the ferns and bushes, his jaw clenched.

“Do you love her?” Fuck, why did she just ask that? Why does she do this to herself? She wishes she could take it back, but it’s too late now. It’s out there, reverberating like ripples in the water.

Only a few seconds pass, and yet the weight of eternity has collapsed upon her, into itself, like the Big Crunch singularity, narrowing down to an infinitesimal point of the universe that’s one single word, one syllable, quietly uttered: “Yes.”

“ _In_ love? Wait, no—don’t answer that.”

“Rey… I have to move on. I have a life 2,000 miles away from here. I have to try and make things work there. I can’t depend on something that already fell apart even before it began. After _two fucking weeks_.”

“You were just saying how much that gutted you. That must mean you feel something for me, that you—”

“It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t be this hard.” Ben’s rubbing his face with both of his hands. “You’re someone I never should have touched, because now everything’s fucked up between us. It would’ve been better never to know.”

Rey squeezes her eyes shut, but his words echo more this way, like how other senses get heightened when you go blind. “So you wish we hadn’t done it.”

“I wish we hadn’t done it, and I wish we’d done _so much more_. I wish I never knew what it was like to be inside you, and I wish I had mated you at the same time.” Despite everything, her heart flutters at this, the traitor. “But we’ve got to forget it, Rey. Forget it ever happened.”

“Must be nice, to be able to do that.”

“What else do you want me to do? Move back home?”

“No, I never said—”

“Live with a ghost in the house, a reminder of all the failures Han believed I was?”

“Han didn’t think you were—”

“We have to move on. Leia, you, me. We have to let the past die.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“But I do,” he says, his voice taking on an airy tone that scares her. “I want to be better than this. Than Han. Fucking every Omega he came across, some young enough to be his daughter. His pathetic excuse of being an Alpha so he can’t help it. You never knew, did you?”

“I knew,” she says.

“ _No_. You didn’t. You might have had an inkling. Maybe you’ve even overheard some things in the fights they’d have late at night when he’d come home drunk, reeking of slick. But did you know Mia showed up at Leia’s office, embarrassing her in front of all her colleagues? Or that Leia had to pay for Hailey’s abortion?”

Rey’s stomach feels like she just belly-flopped into the pool. “What does that have to do with you?”

“I’m going to get a degree. I’m going to be successful. I’m not going to waste my fucking life, gambling and whoring around, fucking over everyone I come across. I swore to myself I’d settle down once I graduate, and my kids would never know what it would be like to not have me around. No missed plays and martial arts tournaments. I swore I’d never be like _him_.” He says it such disgust and vitriol, it breaks Rey’s heart. No matter what Han’s done, she knows Ben misses him. Maybe it’s just easier for him to tap into the anger part of grief instead of the sadness. “I have to make things work at Brown. With Baz. I’ll admit I thought about you and me, making it work somehow—”

Rey’s heart skips a beat. If she were hooked up to an EKG, it would be circled in red on the graph.

“—but then you sent that text, and I remembered all the reasons holding us back. It’s not just the cousin thing, Rey… though I don’t think you’ve thought it through, how many friends you’ll lose. How much it’ll affect your life, having to lie to everyone about how we met, who we are to one another. Even if we say ‘fuck it, let’s do it anyway’…we’re not in the right place to be together, literally or figuratively. It would just end badly, even without the long-distance.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it. “I know it was stupid and immature. But if you just give us a chance… I could move to Rhode Island after graduation, I could—”

Ben’s shaking his head. “I don’t want you to move somewhere just for me. You need to figure out what you want, where you want to go. If _I’m_ even who you want, or if this is just… I don’t know, teenage infatuation or a pheromone thing.”

“And what about you? Is Bazine really who you want? …Are you going to mate her?”

Ben closes his eyes. “I don’t know. I can’t predict the future.”

Something vindictive rises up in her throat, tasting acidic. “You said you’ll never be like Han, but you already are. Getting a degree and getting married to the perfect little Omega won’t change that. You can’t help but hurt people. It’s in your nature.”

Ben just stares at her.

“People don’t change,” she repeats his words from the car, the night before he left. The words are as hard and cold as a knife. She feels them plunge into his chest, the soft spot underneath the ribs. She watches him to see if it’s fatal.

The Adam’s apple of his neck bobs as he swallows. She can’t be certain, but she thinks there’s tears filling up his eyes, though that could just be the sting of the chlorine. “Then I won’t be in your life anymore.”

All the air in her lungs whooshes out. She turns back to the ladder, gripping it, her self-preservation instinct kicking in, afraid of sinking. She spends a few long seconds trying to steady her breath, get herself under control.

The water swooshes musically as she pulls herself up out of the pool, the wind whipping against her dripping-wet skin, clammy and goose-bumped with the cold. But she doesn’t feel any of it.

She grabs her clothes and doesn’t look back.

*

The iced pumpkin coffee is a trenta, yet all the caffeine and sugar in the world wouldn’t be enough to make Rey feel awake. At least it’s Friday. All she has to do is make it through classes for a few hours, and then she can go home, smoke some weed, and pass out, the AC on full blast as she burrows underneath her duvet.

Truthfully, she didn’t actually have to go to school today. She’s already been absent for a few days now; what’s one more? She knows Leia wouldn’t care. But when she woke up this morning after only an hour and a half of sleep, she felt an intense desire to get out of the house and as far away from Ben Solo as possible. She’s regretting that now, slumped in her desk in English first period, her eyes dry and unable to focus on the Xerox’ed pages of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” on the desk in front of her.

“Rey, you know the rules. No drinks in here,” Mr. Armstrong calls out to her across the classroom, where she’s seated in the back.

“She’s diabetic,” Kaydel lies. “You wouldn’t want her to have low blood sugar and collapse and _die_ , would you?”

“That happened to my cousin,” Jess chimes in. “It was all over the news. Over twenty thousand re-tweets on Twitter. _Massive_ PR nightmare for the school.” She tilts her head. “…I think the teacher got fired.”

“Okay, okay.” Mr. Armstrong holds up his hands in defeat. “I get the point, ladies.”

Rey smiles gratefully at her friends, turning back to the Puritan world of witches and woods as she drains the last of her coffee. Only six more hours to go. She wonders if Ben will be there when she gets home, or if he’ll be over at Bazine’s. Or maybe they’re already on a plane back to Providence. Part of her hopes he is.

“So what time should I pick you up tomorrow?” Kaydel asks as they leave the classroom, heading towards Jess’s locker.

For a few seconds, Rey’s mind is blank. And then she remembers. Halloween. How could she forget? It’s her favorite holiday. She looks forward to it every year, starting from November 1st.

“I don’t know if I’m in the partying mood,” she says.

“But this is the perfect time for a party. It’ll take your mind off things.”

“I don’t even have a costume.”

“Wear your funeral dress,” Jess suggests. “Add a white Peter Pan collar, braid your hair in two, and violá: Wednesday Addams.”

“You’re pale and skinny enough for it,” Kaydel agrees. “I think Christina Ricci had an eating disorder during that time too.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “I don’t have an eating disorder.”

“Are you still going as Ariel?” Kaydel asks Jess.

“No, I’m not going. My coven’s celebrating Samhain. We’re going to light a bonfire, call the corners, and have a feast to honor the forgotten dead.” She opens her locker. “Besides, I don’t want to celebrate Christians stealing the holiday from us, like Yule and Christmas.”

“I thought you were Buddhist?” Rey asks with a yawn, leaning against the dented grey lockers.

“No, Dianic Wiccan.”

“Can you make me a voodoo doll of my ex?” Kaydel wonders.

Jess rolls her eyes. Rey’s curious if Kaydel means Ben, not entirely averse to the idea if it is.

“What are you going as?” Rey asks Kaydel.

“Cher from _Clueless_. With the yellow plaid blazer and miniskirt.”

“You’ve got the hair for it,” Jess says.

“And the terrible driving skills,” Rey adds.

“ _Please_ go to Mitaka’s with me tonight,” Kaydel begs Rey. “Pretty please? I don’t want to go alone.”

“I’m really not feeling well.” Rey feels her forehead, which she thinks feels hot, but she’s not sure. “I didn’t get any sleep last night. Or the last few nights, really.”

“But you never sleep.”

“I do sometimes.”

The bell rings. It’s extra shrill today, blaring through Rey’s head and making her feel sick to her stomach. She really shouldn’t have had coffee without eating anything.

“Did you want me to come over instead?” Kaydel asks. “We can watch cheesy horror movies and summon the dark forces with your glow-in-the-dark Ouija board, just like old times.”

Rey smiles. “Another time. Promise.”

They head off into different classrooms. For Rey, it’s study hall, where she spends the entire forty-five minutes with her arms folded and her head down, trying to ignore the glaring fluorescent lights and sporadic chatter. She drifts off a few times, dreaming of car accidents and water; bullets and sand. They blur together until it’s her parents out in the Mojave Desert and Han at the bottom of the lake, which morphs into the backyard swimming pool. When she jumps in to save him, he disappears. She struggles to make it to the surface but can’t, no matter how hard she kicks and flails. Bubbles rise to the surface as she screams. Ben stares down at her, distorted through the waves, laughing.

*

Kaydel and Jess are already at their usual spot in the courtyard underneath one of the sycamores. The leaves are just as green as they are in the summer, and not for the first time, Rey wishes she lived in a place where it turned colors in the fall. She swings her black JanSport backpack off and sits down at the round table, plopping down her yellow plastic lunch tray filled with a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat, a cheeseburger, a plate of fries, an overripe banana, and waxy mini carton of chocolate milk.

The looks Kaydel and Jess give each other doesn’t go unnoticed.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?” Jess asks over her sushi.

Rey rolls her eyes as she bites into a fry. “No, I just haven't eaten in days. I think it’s finally caught up with me.”

“How’s it going with Cassian, by the way?” Kaydel asks.

Rey shrugs one shoulder. “Okay, I guess.”

She really doesn’t want to talk about Cassian. Or think about Cassian. She feels shitty having cheated on him last night with Ben, even if she hadn’t felt so at the time. She knows she has to really think about whether or not she should break up with him; if it’s worth being with someone she doesn’t feel a connection with only because she doesn’t want to be alone. If she wants to be like Ben, settling with a safe bet.

She thought she had loved Cassian once. She remembers doodling _Rey Andor_ in the margins of her geometry notebook, thinking of him with every song that played. But whatever passion she had felt two years ago had long since cooled, only remnants remaining, like volcanic rock after an eruption of lava.

She hadn’t known him then, not really. And she still doesn’t know him now. With a sinking feeling, she realizes she doesn’t care to. Whatever it is she feels now pales in comparison to what she feels for Ben, and she fears this is the way it’s going to be for every guy she dates for the rest of her life. Even if she happens to get mated to an Alpha one day, she doubts biology will be able to change the marrow-deep feeling that she belongs to Ben Solo.

If the multiverse theory exists, she wonders if there’s a version of her and a version of him that are together. If they’re happy. Or if in every parallel universe, in every timeline, they’re destined to be apart. If she’s alone in every single one.

She knows she shouldn’t care. That there are worse things in life. That she should be her own best friend. But she can’t help how she feels. All she’s ever really wanted was to be loved—completely, incandescently loved. She blames romantic movies and novels for these unrealistic expectations. Surely not everyone has a soulmate. And even if you find them… maybe the pain of them not wanting to be with you is worse than never having known them at all.

As Kaydel and Jess gossip about a girl they both know, Rey eats everything on her tray while absentmindedly gazing around the courtyard. Not too far away, she spies Rose lounging on top of Finn’s blazer in the courtyard, giggling at something he’s saying, two lovers lost in their own world, not yet knowing heartbreak or what it’s like to be unloved. She hopes they never do.

*

As Rey turns her key into the lock, she sends up a prayer to the universe that Ben won’t be inside with Bazine. Even if they’re not sleeping together in the house, Rey still doesn’t want to see her. She doesn’t want to see Ben either.

Inside, she hears music softly playing through the walls. It drifts down the steps along with the smoke of earthy, flowery weed. And under it, there’s the smell of petrichor, smoky campfires, and Pacific Northwest woods. It’s so bright and clear, she can practically see the owls peering down on the branches and the elks peeking out behind the thick trunks and lush leaves.

When Rey opens her bedroom door, she’s hit with it, as if one of those elks rammed its horn right into her guts.

Fuck.

She’s going into heat.

She realizes it the second she sees Ben, who’s lying on her bed as if it’s his, despite the twin-sized mattress being almost comically small for a man of his size.

There’s a lot of things she could say right now. Things she _should_ say. Instead, what comes out is, “Is that _my_ weed?”

Ben has the decency to look sheepish. “Yeah, sorry. It’s not like I could take any on the plane with me.”

“So you just thought you’d help yourself?”

“I can pay you for it,” he says.

Rey crosses her arms. “That’s not the fucking point.”

As he sits up, the bed jostles slightly as the springs squeak, and she tries not to think about sex.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. It’s just been a rough couple of days.” There’s a pause as something unreadable crosses his face. “Months, actually.”

Rey drops her backpack down by the door, then goes over to the bed and sits down, the distance of two feet or so in between them. She doesn’t know what to say, so she just reaches down and gingerly takes the half-smoked blunt from in between his fingers, careful not to touch him. But even so, she can feel the heat radiating off his skin.

She takes a deep drag off the blunt, regretting it the second she does, because she accidentally inhales Ben’s scent right along with the weed. She’s acutely aware of his eyes on her, burning on the side of her face. But she just stares ahead, pretending not to notice.

“Rey…”

“Don’t.”

Ben sighs. “You’re going into heat, you know.”

“Well it’s a good thing you’re going back to college then, isn’t it?”

“On Sunday.”

She shrugs. “Stay at Bazine’s if you’re worried.”

There’s a long pause as they pass the blunt back and forth. Finally, with almost a childish hopefulness, he asks, “Did you want to watch something?” As if it’s just like old times.

Rey doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry. “No.”

In her peripheral, she sees him nod to himself. He gets up slowly and then meanders out as if he’s waiting for her to stop him.

She doesn’t.

*

The AC must be broken.

There’s no other explanation for it to be this fucking hot. Surely she can’t be in heat already? It came quickly last time, in July, but that was a breakthrough heat while this one is scheduled—one of the two she expects every year on suppressants, though with everything else going on lately, she failed to remember it coming up. But even so, her body usually has symptoms for a few days before it hits, like PMS.

As Rey kicks her blankets off and glares up at the ceiling, it occurs to her that this might have something to do with the Alpha three inches of drywall behind her.

She could kill him.

She knows it’s irrational. That it’s not entirely his fault. But then she thinks, maybe it is. Maybe that kiss in the pool sped things up, her body believing that Alpha is here, Alpha will take care of her. No need to wait any longer.

Rey sighs heavily.

She could call Cassian. It might be kind of awkward, with Ben staying in his old room for two more days. But then she remember him fucking Kaydel in the middle of the night the last time she was going into heat, his headboard slamming against the wall with no regard for her or how she felt. Well, he didn’t how she felt back then, but at the very least, it was fucking inconsiderate.

She knows Leia won’t mind. Rey might have to endure another lecture about birth control, but her aunt has always been pretty liberal-minded and understanding.

She pulls her phone off the charger, clicking on Messages. Her thumb hovers over Cassian’s name.

This might not be fair to him. It’s a lot of work, helping an Omega in heat. Not only the sex marathons but ensuring they’re eating and drinking enough. And then there’s the overwhelming neediness. While an Alpha craves it, a Beta would probably be repelled.

It’s intense. Too intense for most Betas. Maybe too intense for Cassian, for a relationship that’s not even two months old. It might not survive it.

An even worse thought occurs to her: What if it does? It’s not like she could dump him right after.

Rey puts her phone back down on the nightstand, remembering the Wolf vibrator she bought at the sex shop on Melrose. It helps take the edge off, but nothing compares to an Alpha’s cock. A sex toy can’t tell her she’s a good girl, nor can it fully soothe the burning heat cramps the way an Alpha’s cum can, which is the equivalent of calamine on a sunburn.

With that thought echoing in her head, her body moves on autopilot, and before she knows it, she’s gently knocking on Ben’s door as a wave of cramps crash over her, warm wetness gushing out. She rubs her thighs together but there’s no friction, no relief.

The door swings open.

Ben’s standing in front of her shirtless, his hair mussed and sticking out in all directions as if he’s been running his hands through it repeatedly. He’s too beautiful to look at, and it hurts too much. She closes her eyes.

“Tell me no,” she demands, her voice low and rough. “Tell me you don’t want this.”

“You know I do.”

“Then tell me this won’t mean anything.”

Silence.

Rey musters the courage to open her eyes again. What she finds in his own floors her, sobering her heat-induced haze like a dunk of cold water, a cannonball into the deep end of the pool.

There’s tears in them. And this time, she can’t blame the chlorine.

“You know it does,” he says. “It always does, Rey.”

He opens the door wider.

Rey takes a deep breath, her lungs filling up with his scent. And then she takes a step forward, right into his arms that envelop her so naturally it makes her want to cry too, because god this feels right. This feels right. This feels right.

He buries his head in her neck, inhaling her scent like it’s the most intoxicating thing in the world. His tongue slides hot over her throbbing mating gland, and then he’s planting little kisses up her neck, on her jaw, her cheek. When his lips finally find hers, they taste of the ocean.

His tongue slides hot into her mouth, his left hand spanning the back of her head and tangling in her hair as he devours her. The next thing she knows, the world is tilting and her stomach is flopping as she falls backwards onto his bed, the queen-sized mattress jostling up and down as Ben pulls off her soft cotton shorts and underwear, soaked with sweat and slick.

He stares down at her at the foot of the bed, his chest heaving.

“Are you having second thoughts?” she asks, hating how small and worried her voice sounds.

Ben shakes his head. “I’m just trying to memorize this. How this feels.”

“Like you’ve never fucked an Omega in heat before.”

“I haven’t,” he admits.

“What?” She sits up, ignoring the cramps and painful emptiness. “What about Bazine?”

Ben shakes his head again.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“We only dated a few months in high school.” He shrugs. “Her heat never happened while we were together.”

“Well, don’t worry,” she says in a saccharinely-sweet voice, dripping with arsenic like a poisoned Cherry Coke. “Now that you’re back together, you’ll get to fuck her through all her heats now.”

“Can we not talk about her right now?”

There’s so many things Rey wants to ask. Things like, _What happens after this? Are you just helping me out, or is it more than that… a glimmer of hope that you haven’t decided against us after all?_ But that would ruin this, so she bites her lip and lies back down instead.

Ben pulls down his boxer-briefs, his cock springing out, thick and veiny. She watches the muscles in his bicep flex as he pumps it a few times, and then he’s leaning down over her. His lips find her again, his body settling on top of her, in between her thighs.

He doesn’t stop kissing her, even as he pushes inside, breathing a sigh into her mouth as if he’s been longing for this just as much as she has.

Relief floods through Rey’s veins. She feels like she’s been given water after wandering in the desert for days. The cramps aren’t as intense, but she knows they won’t stop until she’s full of his cum.

His hips roll into hers as he slides in and out slick and hot. There’s not much friction, but the head of his cock is hitting that spot deep inside every time. His stomach is grazing hers as her nipples brush against his chest, her hands on his lower back, pressing him closer, as deep as he can go. She pushes up her hips to meet his, more wetness gushes out until it’s dripping down her thighs, onto his sheets, everywhere.

She hadn’t realized she closed her eyes. When she opens them again, she finds Ben staring at her with such an intense expression, she instinctively closes them again. It’s too much.

“Look at me,” he says. “Open your eyes, Rey.”

It’s not an Alpha command, but she does it anyway. As they watch each other fall apart, she feels herself ascending like a Chinese lantern, bobbing along the ceiling until she escapes out the window that’s open to let the Santa Anas in, and then she’s drifting up, up into the inky night sky, her silk skin glowing everywhere he’s touched her. She rises so high that she doesn't think she’ll ever be able to come back down.

“I love you,” she thinks she hears herself say seconds before she’s lost to the stratosphere.

*

They have sex again an hour later, this time with him sliding into her from behind. His left arm is underneath her, his hand kneading her breast as his other presses against her lower abdomen. His lips are nuzzling into her neck, his breath hot as he pants on her skin, sending shivers up and down her spine as she comes over and over.

The sheets are soaked with sweat, slick, and cum, the room filled hazily with their combined scent. Vaguely, she thinks that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, with Leia sleeping just down the hall. She makes a mental note to take a long, hot shower and burn incense before the sun comes up.

“What do I smell like?” she asks him with her eyes closed as she tries her hardest not to fall asleep, afraid to find out this has all been a dream.

“Tangerines,” Ben murmurs in her ear, feeling his voice rumble through her back like a distant thunderstorm. “Ylang-ylang. Jasmine. A hint of salt, like a summer breeze over the Pacific.”

“Mmm,” she mumbles. “That sounds nice.”

He presses a kiss to her neck. “You smell like home.”

“So do you.”

“Now go to sleep, Omega. You need your rest.”

She drifts off into the cool October night. She forgets about the shower and incense.

*

The next morning, Rey wakes up to find the bed empty and cold.

The cramps are back full force, a layer of sweat on her burning skin. She manages to pull her rumpled clothes back on, then heads down the steps slowly, towards the kitchen.

The sight of her Alpha in the living room floods her with relief. _Alpha is here, Alpha didn’t leave_.

But something’s wrong.

There’s tension in that body she knows so well as he paces back and forth, his jaw and fists clenched, his hair mussed from his hands running through it a million times.

Her heat scent must fill the room, because suddenly he stops dead and looks up at her. She expects him to rush right over, swoop her into his arms, and carry her back to his bed, but he doesn’t.

It’s then she notices Leia sitting on the couch in front of him.


	12. Chemical

_How can you say your life is empty_   
_So late in the day_   
_Why would you stay another second_   
_Now your sight got in the way_   
_A combination_   
_Of love and aggression  
Another second lived_

_Pain comes in stages_   
_If we don’t make it_   
_Nothing changes_

_“Paint the Silence” by South_

* * *

The world will end someday. It’s an inevitability.

Whether it’s by a nuclear mushroom cloud or the slow dwindling of resources due to overpopulation and global warming, animals becoming increasingly extinct every day as the polar caps melt and natural disasters intensify, until the news reports are nothing but an endless series of wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis. It’s hard for Rey to imagine the future, but when she does, she doesn’t see college or a cool career and equally cool loft apartment—she envisions a California ravaged by sandstorms, with robotic pets to replace the ones long dead, their bones to be discovered just like the dinosaurs, displayed in a museum hundreds of years from now, next to the different generations of the iPhone.

But the world ends millions of times every day, in small, quiet, individual ways unbeknown to passing strangers.

The first time the world ended for Rey, she was nine. They were on Route 20, coming back from a Christmas party up north somewhere, at a ranch house with an aluminum Christmas tree and ugly ‘70s wallpaper. She was lying on her back in the backseat of the station wagon, staring up at the beams from headlights of passing cars illuminating the worn felt of the roof, the low rumble of the engine over the endless expanse of pavement underneath lulling her to sleep.

And then there was a sudden lurch. The most horrible sound she had ever heard screeched in her ears, the sickeningly hollow sound of two tons of steel being contorted, crunched so easily like a sheet of paper. She felt it reverberate deep in her gut, in her bones, in the splintered spaces of her cracked wrist and skull.

She doesn’t often remember her dreams, but when she does, she sees a slow-motion version of it, almost like it’s a scene from a movie and not her life: shards of glass glinting brilliantly in headlights, suspended in the car like stars; strands of her mother’s auburn hair floating like an astronaut in space. Closed eyes, like she’s sleeping.

According to the small write-up in the local paper, the car had rolled down the grassy embankment three or four times before plunging into the depths of Lake Clear. She doesn't remember it, only that the world had gone dark and cold. When she woke up in a light blue room days or maybe weeks later, she still felt the coldness that had seeped into her veins, numbing her skin to the touch of others; her heart to the consolations, the hospital gift-shop teddy bears and "Get Well Soon!" balloons, their bright and colorful cheeriness inappropriate, even mockingly cruel.

And no matter how hard she’s tried, she’s never been able to warm herself again. She’s tried, she swears she has. But tragedy leaves a scar, and no matter what people say, time doesn’t heal all wounds. It just gets easier to go through the motions—to get out of bed and brush your teeth and take a shower. Eventually you’ll smile again, maybe even laugh without feeling guilty about it. But then, when you least expect it, it crashes over you like a sudden wave, dragging you out to a sea full of memories that drown you in a darkness you’re not sure you’ll be able to pull out of this time. And when you do emerge, you’re cold again and the wound’s reopened as if it just happened, your face dripping not with tears but with seawater.

The second time the world ended, she was thirteen. It was her birthday, and only Kaydel and one other girl from seventh grade had shown up to swim and eat burgers that Han had grilled in the backyard. Luke had shown up out of the blue—the only time since the accident, since fucking off to Oregon four years earlier—and for one golden afternoon, she thought maybe he had come back for her. But then she’d overheard him in the kitchen, asking Leia for what he insisted was just a loan, even though this was the same man who acted like money was beneath him, frequently preaching on top of his soap box that material possessions were the root of all suffering. It wasn’t for him, he’d insisted, but for someone named Saffron and her son River. The way he spoke of the kid… it was clear he had no need for a daughter anymore. The ink was barely dry on the check before he was walking to his car, Rey watching him take every step from her bedroom window, willing him to look up until the smoke from the exhaust pipe dissipated down the dusk-lit, palm tree-lined street.

The third time was when Han died.

This, right now, might be the fourth. She can practically see the ceiling and drywall collapse in large clumps all around her. She walks around them, over to the couch.

She’s still in heat. She will be for the next five to seven days. But even through the sex-crazed haze that’s like wearing red-tinted glasses, she sees Ben and Leia clearly. She sees Ben’s mussed hair, his bottom lip he keeps chewing, but his eyes are locked onto a geometric pattern of the Persian rug on the living room floor. She sees Leia, sitting calmly and regally as always, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that Rey can smell even more so than usual, along with the plate of scrambled eggs, sausage, and toast on the coffee table in front of her.

Rey’s stomach roars.

Leia picks up the plate and hands it to her, then looks at Ben with a disapproving look. “Honestly Benjamin, I expected you to be a better Alpha than that.”

Rey practically chokes on her mouthful of eggs. She glances over at Ben, an uncharacteristic flush upon his face. “So”—she can barely hear herself over her thudding heart—“you know?”

“Of course I do,” Leia responds. “I’m an Alpha myself, or have you forgotten? Not to mention I’m still sharp as a whip, despite what the Republicans say. _Or_ Luke. I still beat his ass in online Scrabble, every time.”

“How long have you known?”

“A few years.” She waves a hand in the air dismissively. “I was hoping to avoid this by sending Ben away during his ruts, but…”

Rey’s heart sinks. “I’m sorry.”

Leia gives her a funny look. “Whatever for?”

“For… you know… with your son.” She refuses to look at Ben, though she can feel his embarrassment just as acutely as she can feel her own.

“Oh, _Rey_. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame Ben. A part of me figured this would happen, sooner or later. I thought you two living together for so long would make you more like brother and sister, but clearly”—she sighs—“nature can’t be stopped.”

“I tried not to,” she says meekly, though it’s only a partial truth. She’s tried not to want him, to love him, but she’s never tried not to be with him. The second he touched her, she never wanted him to stop touching her. She would never have the strength to walk away. She knows this as much as she knows that the world and even the entire universe will end someday, and any other certainty.

Leia purses her lips sympathetically. “I know, dear.” She glances over at Ben, or rather at his back as he stands staring out the front bay windows, his arms crossed. “I just don’t want you two to make a commitment you’re not ready for.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you were to accidentally be mated… or wind up pregnant…”

“I already told you, that’s not going to happen,” Ben insists.

Rey’s heart plummets into her stomach. Not that she wants to get pregnant (she’s seen enough of _Teen Omega Mom_ on MTV to scare her off from ever wanting kids), but she’d be lying if she said she didn't want to be mated to Ben.

Leia nods. “As long as you’re safe then.”

This entire conversation is painfully awkward and embarrassing, so Rey just shovels more food into her mouth. It’s then that a sudden heat cramp painfully stabs her in her abdomen. She tries to ignore it and act like nothing’s wrong, but who is she kidding? She’s in a room with two Alphas.

“Ben, I think it’s time you… well, _you know._ ”

A slight flush rises to his cheeks, probably mortified over this just as much as Rey is. Especially as the scent of her sudden gush of wetness is filling the room, triggering his own physical reaction.

“You really don’t mind?” Rey finally has the courage to ask.

“Well, I’m not going to say I _like_ it… but at this point, it’s done. You’ve already chosen him as your Alpha for this heat. I’m not going to make you go through this alone, not when you’ve two already… well, not when he’s already helped you.”

Rey wonders what Leia would think if she knew Rey didn't just want him as her Alpha for this one heat only, but for every heat. If she knew they had already slept together before this, without the influence of heats or ruts. If she knew just how much Rey was in love with her son. Would she be thrown out, cut out of the will and family photographs, her name barred from being uttered as if it was a curse, until the memory of her existence blurred around the edges as if she’d actually died long ago in the accident? Maybe it would have been better if she had.

But she’s not thinking about that now. All she can think about it the way Ben slides her underwear off her hips, his nostrils flaring and his pupils blowing out until there’s no trace of brown or green anymore, just jet black like his hair that she can’t stop running her hands through as his body covers hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth in a searing kiss that heats her up even more than the heat fever.

There’s no need to be quiet anymore. The secret is out. But old habits die hard, and besides, Leia _knowing_ they’re having sex and _hearing_ them have sex are two very different things.

Ben’s unwavering gaze is enough to penetrate her, his plush, parted lips brushing her own as he fucks her down into the mattress, the head of his cock hitting that spot deliciously deep, her warm slick suctioning him in. Obscene squelching noises fill the room, combining with their pants and hitches and moans as the mattress springs squeak back and forth, back and forth, in and out.

She looks down, watching as his cock pulls out of her over and over and over, covered in her shiny wetness.

His hand spans the entire width of her thigh as he hitches it up higher so he can go deeper, his stomach brushing hers, his breath ghosting on her neck. Suddenly, his tongue swipes long and hot up her mating gland. Electricity shivers up and down her spine to the point where she's practically vibrating. Fresh waves of slick gush out with every shiver, soaking the sheets, the mattress, sliding all over their thighs.

Her mating gland throbs, _bite me bite me bite me._

But he doesn’t. He never does.

The light in the room changes over their writhing bodies, morning’s beams of molten gold floating over their bare skin and up the wall above the bed, until it disappears into mid-afternoon. Even when they’re not knotted together, their limbs are entwined, her head resting on his wide chest, rising and falling, rising and falling, lulling her to sleep like rolling tides. She’s never slept this sound before. An ancient part of her believes that he’s her Alpha, that he’s here to make her a home, one he’ll build himself out of stones in the wilderness somewhere. And he’ll fill her belly up with food he’s hunted himself as he fills her cunt up with cum, until she’s soft and round with babies that have tufts of black hair and hazel eyes, tugging on her sheepskin clothes, calling her _Momma, Momma_ in a language she doesn’t recognize, something that sounds strangely Scandinavian, like Vikings. Echoes of primitive Alphas and Omegas, or of a past life, maybe.

The only time Ben leaves her is to bring her bottled water, a bowl of purple grapes, and plastic-wrapped mozzarella sticks.

She’s covered in a sheen of sweat, strands of her hair are sticking to her face and neck, her muscles are sore, she’s slippery down there with slick and cum, and she’s pretty sure she smells—and not in the good way, like the tangerines and ylang-ylang and jasmine Ben said she smells like. But despite this, she feels like a Roman goddess, Ben’s white sheet covering her like a toga, his fingertips lightly drifting up and down her body, almost as if he’s worshipping her, half in-awe and half-afraid of breaking her.

She’s barely swallowed the last grape before his lips are upon hers again. She’s perfectly sated, but she doesn’t tell him this. He seems to know anyway, which doesn’t surprise her because sometimes she thinks he knows her better than she knows herself.

She begs him to bite her. She can’t help it; she’s an Omega in the midst of a heat, _of course_ she's going to beg him to bite her. She wonders if he’s tempted to, the way his lips and tongue seem to be permanently attached to her gland. His teeth scrape it just a little bit harder each time, as if he's playing Russian Roulette with himself, coming _so close_ , so dangerously close. It's sore and swollen, pulsing hard with the hope that he’ll forget himself, even just for a second. That’s all it takes, and then she’s his forever. Not that she isn’t already.

But he’s not hers. He’s just hers for right now.

It’s only after she comes, and her heart slows as the sweat on her skin cools, that she feels the chill of guilt. She’d hate for him to be tied down to her because of a split-second mistake. She wants him to want it just as badly as she does, and not under the influence of a thousand years of biology in their blood, drunk off pheromones.

She tries to lose herself in the moment, and not think about the future. She doesn’t want to think about what happens when her heat ends, or when Ben goes back to Brown, back to Bazine. She doesn’t want to think about Cassian and the inevitable break-up. She doesn’t want to think about anything other than the way Ben feels, the way he tastes, the way he smells, the way he’s looking down at her right now as if this is everything, and the way he makes her feel as if she could actually be enough.

*

It’s dark when Rey wakes up, the only sound the humming of the AC. She’s thankful Ben had turned it on, the crisp coolness of the white sheet feeling heavenly upon her flushed and clammy skin. She sits up, pulling her hair up into a messy bun to get it off her sweaty neck.

They must be synced to one another, because suddenly Ben’s awake too. He kisses the back of her neck, one large hand pressing on her bare chest, gently urging her down. She sinks back as he shifts to move over her, her thighs naturally opening to him.

Suddenly, he grabs her hands and pulls them above her head, holding her wrists together, pinning her down.

“What are you—”

“Shh, Omega,” he mumbles, his voice syrupy thick with sleep, but his cock already hard, ready. His lips gravitate to her neck, latching onto her mating gland and sucking so hard that she knows there’s no way there won’t be a bruise. She wonders if he’s intentionally trying to mark her, just short of sinking his fangs into her gland and claiming her for real. She almost dares him to.

One of his hands caresses down the side of her face, skimming over her clavicle to cup her left breast, kneading it, pinching the nipple. A jolt of pain adds to the pleasure, which isn’t surprising, masochist that she is. She bites his bottom lip in retaliation.

She needs to touch him so badly, to tangle her hands through his hair. But when she tries to tug her hands out of his grasp, he growls, deep and low. She can feel the vibration of it against her body, shooting straight down to her cunt.

“Stop it, Omega,” he warns, and she can swear his voice is even lower than usual, though she doesn’t know how that’s possible.

He kisses her senseless until her brain blanks out like a sun glare, so dazed that she doesn’t even realize he used an Alpha command. Not that it matters. Ben doesn't need to use them. All he has to do is look at her.

She tries to move again, but his grip tightens.

“But…” she whines breathlessly. “But I need—”

“I know. I know exactly what you need. And if you’re good, I’ll give it to you.” He drags his gaze down her body, which is so heavy she can feel it, before he flicks his eyes back up, locking onto hers. “Are you going to be a good girl for me?”

Rey’s stomach flips. What? Where did that come from?

Ben pinches her nipple again, even harder this time.

“Yes,” she hears herself answer.

“Yes _what_?”

“Yes… _Alpha_.”

He looks pleased. “Do you want my knot, Omega?”

Rey nods, probably way too enthusiastically, but who is she kidding? She’s long past pretending to be aloof.

“Then beg for it.”

“…What?”

He doesn’t answer. His black eyes are boring down into her intensely, his scent just as intense, more powerful and vigorous than she ever remembers it being. It’s then she realizes— _Ben is in rut_. She’s sent him into rut.

Rey bites her bottom lip in contemplation of what to say, enjoying the way he stares down at the movement, transfixed. She’s never done the dirty talk thing before, but she’s watched enough Alpha/Omega porn to wing it. She thinks about _Rough Ruts and Hot Heats_ , the way Alphas like their Omegas to be extra submissive.

She makes a thousand microscopic adjustments until she feels she’s at her most attractive, the kind of look she uses in selfies. Her body is soft, her eyes hooded as she licks her lips, making her voice go low. “I need you so badly, Alpha. I need you to fuck me, stuff me with your knot, fill me up with your cum. I’m _so_ empty. _Please_ , Alpha.”

His cock twitches against her folds, which are dripping wet. “Oh, I will,” he promises. “But first, I want you to promise me something, Rey.”

She’s so caught up in the way his cock feels, the way the head is teasing her, that she misses the fact that he’d called her by her name. “Hmm? And what’s that?”

His hand squeezes her wrists tightly. He bends his head down further, a tuft of black waves falling in front of his face, making his gaze look almost menacing. “I want you to promise me you’ll never fuck anybody else in my bed _ever again_.”

Rey feels like she's been dunked in cold water, the burning need of her heat momentarily forgotten. “I promise. Ben… I’m so sorry.”

He continues to stare down at her unflinchingly, to the point where she begins to wonder if he didn’t hear her. But then he nods, and in one fast, smooth, powerful movement, he’s thrusted inside her to the hilt. All the air in Rey’s lungs whooshes out.

Ben pulls all the way out, then plunges all the way back in. He does this over and over and over and over and over, making her feel the full force of his cock in a way she’s never felt before. It feels like he’s simultaneously punishing and rewarding her.

“Bite me, Alpha,” she half-pants, half-moans. “Please... Bite me… Bite me... Bite me...”

Ben pulls back, his chest heaving, his eyes wild. Then he slides down her body, hoisting her right thigh up, which looks so tiny in his massive grip. Before she can ask why he stopped, she feels the sharp pinprick of pain blooming as his fangs sink into the sensitive flesh, followed by the hot swipe of his tongue as he licks the blood away.

There’s no gland there, no mating bond formed. But it’s no less possessive.

He open-mouth kisses up her thigh until his face is buried in her cunt. All she can see is his mop of black waves as he licks and sucks up and down her soaking wet lips, latching onto her clit. Normally she’d be embarrassed by how much slick is gushing out, but Ben can’t seem to get enough, as if it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted—a Michelin three-star restaurant, or his last meal as a condemned man.

Rey grabs a fistful of his hair, yanking hard. “Inside me. Breed me.”

The teenage girl in her doesn’t actually want this, but the Omega in heat does. And apparently so does the Alpha in rut, because he’s right back to plunging his cock into her, even more zealously than before.

Suddenly, the earth tilts, gravity spinning out of control—

—and she finds herself facing the mattress, her hands digging into the haphazard linen, pulling the bed sheet off the corner as Ben lifts her ass up, his hands gripping her hips, and fucks her from behind. One of his hands grabs her hair by the messy bun, long strands falling out in front of her face, as the other starts rubbing her clit furiously.

Something burning this white hot can’t sustain for long before exploding. It takes only seconds before Rey blanks out with an orgasm that slams into her so hard she thinks there was an earthquake.

She collapses upon the bed, her limbs turned into jellyfish. Ben covers her body entirely with his, his cock sliding in and out and in and out and in and out until his knot swells and catches on her walls, stuffing her like he swore he would, ropes of cum shooting into her womb, flooding her body warmly. He’s mumbling something in her ear, but she only catches fragments, like “sweet” and “mine” and “always.”

When she awakens sometime later, she finds herself in his arms as he carries her to the bathroom. Candles are flickering all along the porcelain tub, the steam from the soapy water fragrant with jasmine, floating with rose petals and lavender sprigs from a bouquet downstairs. It reminds her of the _Ophelia_ painting by Millais, only instead of madness and tragedy, she thinks now about how much Hamlet loved her, even when he was pushing her away, even when he said he didn’t.

But she shouldn’t read too much into this. Ben’s just being a typical Alpha, taking care of his Omega during her heat. But she can’t remember Poe ever doing this for her.

And then, because she can’t help it, her mind goes to a dark place, wondering if he’ll do this with Bazine when she goes through heats with him in the future.

After he leaves, Rey sinks down into the water, holding her breath until it burns, until she has no choice but to breach the surface, her lungs gasping for air.

*

The next five days are a beautiful blur of depraved, animalistic fucking and something so tender that it borders dangerously on being called “making love.” As Leia has taken the opportunity to stay with her friend Amilyn, they have the house entirely to themselves, but still, they spend most of the time in Ben’s room.

She knows her heat is ending one early November evening when the cold actually starts to get to her. Usually the pool water feels glorious upon her heat-flushed skin like cool silk, but tonight, she gets goosebumps as she floats in the glowing turquoise, staring up at the sky as it darkens from a dusty lavender to a deep plum, her arms stretched out as her hair floats all around like a mermaid, feeling freer than she’s ever felt before.

Suddenly, the water is disturbed as Ben dives in. She can feel him lurking like a shark, and when he finally emerges and grabs her from behind, she’s not in the least bit surprised, but still she shrieks playfully.

Underwater, Ben kisses her. She’s never had a kiss in the rain even though she’s always wanted to—she blames the Southern California climate for that—but this is the next best thing. Even when they’re not having sex, they can’t stop kissing. She thinks she likes the kissing even more than the sex. He kisses her with his entire body, with his full concentration as if this is something he takes very, very seriously. She loves it when he grabs her face with both of his hands, or when one hand caresses the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in the nape of her hair. His kisses are so good, she feels them electrifying her entire body like touching a fallen telephone wire. She never wants him to stop kissing her.

Eventually, it gets too cold to stay in the water. They warm each other up inside, underneath the duvet like a tent as vinyl crackles on the record player and hundreds of gold stars glow on the ceiling and walls from an old star projector, their own private planetarium, alone on their own private world where they can actually be together, thousands of lightyears away from anybody else.

*

Two days later, they actually leave the house.

Ben refuses to tell Rey where they’re going, though he tells her to bring her camera. She decides on a toy camera, the Diana F+, and even though it’s a bitch to find anywhere that still develops 120 film, the photos come out imperfectly perfect, with dreamy light flares and over-saturated colors.

She knows it was the perfect choice the second she spies a Ferris wheel spinning brightly against the azure sky. She hadn't been to Santa Monica Pier in years, and she feels like a little kid again as they walk down the boardwalk together.

When she feels Ben’s hand brush against hers, at first she thinks it’s merely an accident. But then he’s gently twining his fingers with hers, and it occurs to her they’re _holding hands_. In public. Like an actual couple.

She tries not to let it show how much it’s affecting her, but she can’t help the smile, or the way her scent must spike with happiness. She tries to temper it by reminding herself that he’s only doing it because they’re not likely to run into anyone they know. And he’s probably still coming down from all the endorphins and bonding hormones released during heats and ruts. It’s chemical, that’s all this is. It’s not real.

They play a few games and ride on the roller coaster, even though Ben’s afraid of heights. They eat tacos and drink cold, surgery Mexican Cokes on the beach, on a woven yoga blanket that he was thoughtful enough to bring.

Rey’s squinting up at the seagulls soaring in the sky, listening to the distant shrieks of children and rolling waves crashing upon the shore, the sun kissing her skin, thinking nothing will ever be as good as this again. She can live to be ninety-nine and nothing will ever top this.

She can feel Ben’s hand in hers again. And something cold, metallic. When she looks down, she sees an oval mood ring on her ring finger, on her left hand.

“What’s this?”

“Saw it in the gift shop,” he says, shrugging. “Thought you might like it.”

She won’t read too much into this. It’s chemical, that’s all this is. It’s not real.

As he stares out at the horizon, she takes the opportunity to drink him in—the dark red hoodie with the sleeves rolled up his corded forearms, the faded black jeans, the Wayfarer sunglasses like he’s a celebrity, his dark waves blowing in the gentle breeze.

She looks down at the ring again, at the bright green hue. She knows it’s due to the thermochromic liquid reacting to her body temperature and not her mood, but she can’t help but think it’s accurate the same way she knows astrology is bullshit, and yet she still reads her horoscope every day. After all, green is her favorite color. It’s her at her happiest.

She spends the next two hours taking photos, going through three rolls of film. Ben, who notoriously hates getting his photo taken, doesn’t even seem to mind when she snaps a candid of him for what must be the twentieth time.

*

It’s the middle of the night, but Rey can’t sleep. She’s a nocturnal animal by nature, but lately she’s been getting a full eight hours, which she thought was due to her body recovering from heat, but now she thinks it’s due to Ben sleeping next to her. Her heat and his rut are done, and yet they’re still sleeping together. Not just sex, but literally sleeping. Surely this—whatever _this_ is—isn’t just adrenaline, dopamine, and oxytocin?

She replays the first night they slept together, after they saw _Casablanca_ at the Vista. How he’d said that if they were to do this, _really_ do this, he would want to be all in. That he wouldn’t want to hide it.

But there’s too much in the way. The timing is off, and even if it wasn't... Ben had made it clear he didn’t want Rey to move to Rhode Island just for him. Even if she did anyway, what about Bazine? Leia? Society?

She tosses and turns a few times, before finally getting up and getting some water. She then rolls a joint in the hope that that will help her relax, and stop the thoughts that are loudest in the silence of the night.

When she crawls back into bed, Ben instinctively wraps an arm around her and nuzzles into her neck.

And because this feels too good… because when things are too good, there’s an inevitable fall… because Rey is nothing if not brilliant at fucking things up… she whispers, “When are you going back to Brown?”

Ben shifts behind her. He doesn’t say anything, but she knows he’s awake. He heard her.

“I withdrew,” he finally says, his voice rough with sleep.

Rey turns to face him. “What? When?”

“I don’t know. A few days ago.”

“Why?”

“You need me here. You and Leia.”

“Ben…” Rey closes her eyes, sighing deeply. “Ben, I can’t let you do that.”

“It’s already done,” he says. “Besides, it’s not your decision.”

“Can’t you undo it? Call the advising office, explain that you just—”

“No.”

Rey sits up, looking down at Ben as he rubs his eyes. “‘No’ you can’t, or ‘no’ you won’t?”

“I won’t.”

“So then there’s still time to return.”

“Rey… go back to sleep.”

“No.”

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“What good will talking do if you’ve already decided?”

“I thought you’d be happy,” he says, sounding hurt.

“Happy that you’re throwing away your entire future?”

He rolls his eyes. “That’s a little dramatic. It’s not like there aren’t schools in California.”

“But if you’d wanted to go to them, you would have.”

Ben doesn’t say anything, which is confirmation enough.

“Please, just call the office tomorrow. Email your professors. Explain about your dad dying, that you needed to stay a little longer to get all the affairs in order or whatever.”

Ben sits up now too. “Don’t you want me here?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why are we arguing about this?”

“I can’t let you do this. Give up everything for me.”

“I’m not,” he insists, kissing her bare shoulder.

Rey shakes her head. “You are. You didn’t want me moving to Rhode Island for you. What makes you think I’d want you moving back home for me?”

“Don’t you need me?” he asks, his voice so vulnerably raw that it hurts to hear.

She does. She needs him more than she needs Leia or Luke, even her mother. She needs him more than she needs her camera or the ocean or anything else that she loves, because she loves him most of all. But she can't let him do this. She can't be the one to hold him back. He'll only grow to resent her. Maybe not right away but little by little, piece by piece, and she wouldn't be able to stand it if one day he looks at her and realizes that it wasn't worth it. _She_ wasn't worth it.

“I don’t,” she finally says, surprising herself at how clear and steady it comes out.

There’s a long pause that’s so heavy she can physically feel it. She stares ahead at a glowing prick of light on the wall from the star projector, imagining she’s far away from here, floating in space somewhere.

“You don’t mean that,” he says, but it sounds like he’s not sure.

“I do,” she says, to that pinprick of light. “I’m sorry.”

“But you said…”—he sighs shakily, and the mattress moves with the movement of him running a hand through his hair—“you said you loved me.”

“I don’t remember that,” she says, even though she does.

“The first night of your heat, you said it.”

Rey screws her eyes shut, then lies back down, pulling the duvet up and burrowing in it as she turns on her side away from him. “People say all kinds of things in the heat of the moment. It doesn’t always mean anything. You should know that better than anyone.”

The fourth time the world ended, Rey was seventeen, going on eighteen, lying in bed with a boy she was in love with, a boy she couldn’t let herself have even when the universe gave him to her.

The fifth time was when she woke up alone, Ben’s suitcase gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve gotten a bunch of comments asking if there’s a happy ending, and yes, there is. Congrats, you’ve gotten through the most angsty angst of the fic. There’s nowhere to go but up from here.


	13. Kintsugi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brand new chapter. If you’re resuming reading from when I first posted last year, just a head’s up that Ch. 8 (Genesis) and Ch. 11 (Cherry Coke and Arsenic) were re-written, with some new passages/scenes added.

_Don't make me sad, don't make me cry_  
_Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough, I don't know why_  
_Keep making me laugh_  
_Let's go get high_  
_The road is long, we carry on_  
_Try to have fun in the meantime_

_“Born to Die” by Lana Del Rey_

* * *

For the past hour, Rey’s been sitting in her Volvo with the engine running as if it’s a getaway car.

She can back out. Go get Chipotle instead and sad-eat a burrito with extra guac in her car. She can call Kaydel and Jess and therapy shop at the Beverly Center. She can go home and swim. Watch something on Netflix. Do her homework. She can do this another day.

But she’s gone this far, all the way out to South Pasadena, and she doesn’t know when she’ll work up the nerve again. And besides, it’s already been too long. Two and a half weeks since her heat began on Halloween, and a week and a half since Ben went back to Rhode Island, back to Brown, back to Bazine. Two and a half weeks of Cassian’s texts and calls she doesn't answer, because what is she going to say? She still doesn’t know what to say, but doing it in person is the least she can do. He deserves that much. He deserves better than her.

She needs to get it over with. Rip the band-aid off.

Just not yet.

She feels very LA today, with her straw Panama hat and Wayfarers, listening to Lana Del Rey as she sips on her coconut water. She floats on the melancholia it evokes like she’s on an inflatable raft.

A light breeze blows through the rolled-down window. It’s a balmy 72 degrees, sunny with a cerulean sky and puffy marshmallow clouds. A beautiful day to rip someone’s heart out. As she catches her reflection in the rearview mirror, she wonders if she should look more sad; if she should have dressed in sweats with no make-up instead of red lips, winged eye-liner underneath her sunglasses, and a light blue linen shirt tucked into white skinny jeans, hiding the healing bite mark on the inside of her right thigh.

No need to rub it in, after all.

Every time she moves, she feels the soreness of the bite—the only evidence left that it happened. Her bed has been replaced with a queen-sized mattress. Her sheets are fresh and clean, smelling of Gain. Her room has been cleansed with the smoke of white sage and palo santo, the windows open to exorcise any lingering remnants like ghosts. She still hasn’t gotten the roll of 120 film developed, and she doesn’t think she will anytime soon—it’s going to sit in the Diana F+ like a time capsule, and maybe this way, that beautiful day in the sun will be kept frozen, immortalized, untouched by anything that came after it. And will come, eventually.

If there’s anything she’s learned in her almost eighteen years on the earth, it’s that it keeps spinning. Life moves on. People move on. Ben will move on, if he hasn’t already. So will Cassian. And someday, she hopes, so will she.

She might not ever find that kind of connection again. It’s something she has to accept, that her life’s great love is already behind her. That some things burn too bright to last. But that doesn’t mean she can’t find another Alpha’s scent mouthwatering. That she can’t have fun. And eventually even find happiness with someone else. When it comes to Ben… she’ll just have to stuff all those memories down deep in that secret place in her heart, lock it away, throw the key into the Pacific.

She vows to stop wearing the mood ring he slipped on her left hand like a promise ring. Maybe she should throw _that_ into the Pacific, but she knows she never will. She can’t even take it off when the nickel turns her finger green.

Still, she thinks she’s come a long way. She even bought a few succulents the other day. She’s not exactly _okay_ , but she’s not going to break down the way she did when he left the first time. She’s not going to let the venom spread through her veins; she’s going to suck it out. She’s going to do what needs to be done. She’s going to try and be someone her mother would be proud of. Baby steps.

In the sideview mirror, Cassian’s cornflower-blue ranch house waits for her across the street.

She feels guilty. No, she feels guilty about _not_ feeling guilty. She cheated on someone, but unlike Ben, she didn’t have a second thought about it. She wishes she had his moral code, even if it was forged out of wanting to be the exact opposite of Han. She wonders if _she’s_ like Han, but she’s not blaming her biology for what she did; she’s painfully aware she could have had her heat alone, holed up in her room with a sex toy like she’s been doing twice every year since she was twelve. She knows she could have gotten through it without fucking an Alpha. Without fucking Ben.

She could have asked her actual _boyfriend_ to help her through it. Maybe she should have. But a Beta is no better than a sex toy. They’re even worse, because you don’t have to worry about the feelings of a vibrator. The last thing she needs when in the midst of a heat is to take care of someone else, when she’s the one who needs to be taken care of.

A flash of sweaty skin; of long, wavy black hair being pushed back.

Rey closes her eyes, trying to focus on the present. She takes slow, deep breaths in and out, in and out, focusing on the song, the breeze whooshing in her ear and making strands of her hair dance across her face. The faint smell of sunscreen wafting off her skin. She takes all the feelings that have suddenly swelled like a rising tide and accepts them. That it happened. That it’s over.

She feels it recede back into the ocean.

 _Mindful meditation is helping_ , she thinks. If only it could make her get over Ben once and for all. Cassian was supposed to do that, but the timing wasn’t right. Or maybe he was never the right guy. He’s someone else’s.

She still likes him. How could she not? He’s kind, he’s hot, he’s a good kisser. He gives her free weed. She doesn’t even want to think about how much he's spent buying it from Blaze just to keep her happy. She considers withdrawing a few hundred from the ATM, but on second thought, it might be insulting to shove a wad of cash in his face as she dumps him.

The song ends. Rey switches to _Ultraviolence_ , plays “West Coast.” She wishes she had some purple kush right now. Or even a cigarette, not that she smokes them. Something to calm her, to keep her hand busy so that she doesn’t check her phone for messages from Ben that aren’t there. Or check Bazine’s Instagram, for signs of him in the curated snapshots of her life.

In the past week and a half, there’s been only two posts: a Starbucks cup sharpie’d with _PSL_ , held by a fresh mauve manicure; and her posing with some guy wearing a rugby shirt who looks like a younger Chris Hemsworth, their heads close together, smiling. The caption underneath is a smiley emoji blowing a heart-kiss, though what that means, Rey’s not sure. It’s like deciphering hieroglyphics. Is it a friendly kiss on the cheek? Or a sarcastic, coded message to Ben?

Rey vows to stop obsessing. To block her so she doesn't keep looking at her account. She needs to focus on her health, remember to drink water. Water her succulents. Continue to meditate. Sign up for that Bikram yoga class. Quit smoking weed so much.

Just not today. When she gets home, she’s going to roll a big fat blunt and watch _Bridesmaids_. She’s going to need it.

*

Three songs later, Rey finally knocks on the front door, an autumn-themed wreath hanging on it. She’s never been to Cassian’s house before, as he's always preferred to hang out at hers or meet up with her somewhere. She feels like she should have come sooner. Made more of an effort. Been a better girlfriend.

The door swings open.

“Hey,” he says, smiling. “I was wondering where you were.”

Rey smiles back, feeling pain in the corners of her mouth for how fake it is. “Yeah, sorry. Got caught up with some errands for Leia.”

He steps back to let her come inside. As she does, her feet sink into the cream-colored carpet, which has vacuum marks in it, the smell of powdered deodorizer filing her nose. She removes her sunglasses and glances around, wondering if he had cleaned just for her. She follows him as he weaves around the couch, only having a few seconds to peer into the kitchen before he leads her down a hallway and into his room. She tries not to look at the framed family photographs hanging on the walls.

His room is small, his twin-sized bed pushed up against the sand-colored wall in the corner, a window running along the length with a view of the backyard. Above the bed are shelves stacked with well-worn paperbacks. _On the Road. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The Communist Manifesto._

The room smells of apples, caramel, and cloves. A scented candle is flickering on the dresser, next to his TV. She has no doubt now he’s put in the effort to make his house nice. It just makes her feel even worse. Did he actually go into Bath & Body Works to get it?

She stands around awkwardly for a few seconds before he motions for her to sit on the bed. She does, then takes off her hat, running a hand through her hair.

“It looks good,” he says as he sits down next to her. She must look confused, because he clarifies: “The hair. I like it.”

Oh, right. Her chin-length bob she got a few days ago. The break-up haircut, pre-break-up. “Thanks.”

A few more seconds pass. Rey glances around again, at the Nirvana and _I Want to Believe_ posters on the wall. She feels the mattress move as Cassian reaches over to his nightstand and pulls the drawer open. When she looks to see what he’s doing, she sees he’s grinding some bud, the fragrant flowery and earthy smell of high-quality kush blooming in the room, mingling with the autumn candle. He pours it into his blown-glass pipe and offers it to her.

Rey takes a long drag, instantly feeling it wash over her. Cassian takes a hit, then holds it out again, but she shakes her head. She doesn’t plan on staying long, and she can’t drive baked out of her mind.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she says.

“So…”—he places the pipe down on his nightstand—“what happened?”

“Well… you know I’m an Omega—”

“I’m aware.”

“—and I have heats twice a year on suppressants, and, um, well… I had my heat.”

“I didn’t really pay attention to the designation stuff in health, but don’t they only last, like, a week?”

“Yeah.” She sighs heavily. “Yeah, they do.”

“So why'd you ghost me for so long? You gonna tell me the reason?”

Rey decides to just come out with it. No point dragging this on. The sweetness of the candle is depressing her, and she knows she’s going to forever associate the scent with this memory. She needs fresh air. “I spent it with someone. An Alpha.”

Cassian nods. “Yeah, I figured.”

Rey puts her head in her hands, leaning down on her knees. “I’m _so_ sorry. I’m a bad person.”

She feels him rub small circles on her back. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Rey, I figured that would happen. I know that you need… an Alpha or whatever, to help you. I don’t blame you at all.”

“But you should.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. It’s okay. Seriously.”

Rey looks up at him. “So you don’t hate me?”

“Of course not. I was worried about you. I thought something bad had happened.”

She didn’t think she could feel any worse, but surprise, a new bottom. “No. Nothing like that.”

“I know your uncle just died, and I mean, my dad died a few years ago, so I know how hard it is.”

Rey suddenly feels a sharp pinprick behind her eyes at the mention of Han. She motions for the pipe. Cassian hands it to her.

“So who was he?” he wonders in a causal voice, and though she can’t smell any spikes in a Beta’s scent, she knows him well enough to know it bothers him at least a little. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious I guess.”

“Some guy off a heat/rut app.” She can’t tell him it was Ben. It’s not like they swore a blood oath never to tell anyone, but she can’t risk it getting out. High school is vicious enough. And besides, it’s kinder for Cassian to believe it was just some random Alpha. A dildo that happened to be attached to a body.

“Did he… did he treat you well?”

Another flash, this time of oyster pails spread out on the floor, Ben feeding her some lo mein, laughing as Rey glares at him when it falls off the chopsticks. “Yeah.”

Cassian nods. “Then I’m glad.”

“Don’t say that,” she whispers.

“I meant it when I said it’s okay. I know, as a Beta, I could never be what you need all the time.” He shrugs one shoulder, as if it’s no big deal. “I’m happy to be what you need most of the time.”

“That’s the thing. I think I need some time to be alone. My life’s a mess right now, and I just… I need to focus on myself. I’m sorry.”

There’s a long silence, heavy with the weight of so much she’s not saying, like there’s another person in the room. And there is, in a way.

“Are you sure?”

Rey nods. Something catches her eyes, on the shelf above his bed. A Polaroid in a snow globe frame, soft and hazy but still clear as to who it’s of.

“You should go to San Francisco,” she says. “Find Jyn.”

Cassian follows her line of vision. “That was a long time ago. She’s moved on, I’m sure.”

“Maybe she hasn’t. Or even if she has, there might still be a part of her burning for you. A part that never really goes away, no matter how much she wants it to. No matter how much time passes.”

Cassian seems to mull this over. “It feels wrong, talking about another girl with you.”

“It’s okay,” she assures him with a small smile. “I want you to be happy. You deserve that. Do you think we can be friends?”

He smiles back. “Of course.”

Rey stands up. He shadows her, standing up too. She steps into his space and envelops him in a hug, and when she lets go, she lets him go.

As she steps out into the late afternoon sun, the golden light pouring low through the canopy of oak trees, she thinks about how she isn’t like Ben, because she refuses to hold onto someone just to be unlonely. Maybe it’s petty, but she feels better than him.

There are worse things in life than being alone. It took her a long time to realize this, but now that she has, she feels older, wiser. She feels like she can go anywhere, do anything. She’s still broken, but there’s gold in the cracks now like Kintsugi, and she’s stronger for it.

*

Rey’s enjoying a bánh mì and peach iced tea outside in the school courtyard, only half-paying attention to Kaydel and Jess as they compete for who’s going to have the worst Thanksgiving.

“I _see_ your ‘step-mom makes things awkward with talks of freezing her eggs,’ and _raise_ you ‘mom’s new boy-toy could only drink legally for the past two months.’” Kaydel stabs her caesar salad with her plastic spork.

Jess scoffs. “Them rookie numbers. My dad was fucking his nineteen-year-old intern all last year. Lauren found her underwear in his pocket, and it had Hello Kitty all over it.”

Rey freezes as she goes to take another bite of her sandwich, her gag reflex kicking in. “Please guys, I’m eating.”

“Fine, you win,” Kaydel concedes. Jess looks triumphant.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry,” Jess says to Rey. “I totally forgot. I mean, our parents are total nightmares, but they’re alive and all…”

“Sometimes I wish they weren’t,” Kaydel mumbles. Jess very obviously kicks her underneath the table.

“It’s fine,” Rey says. “Honestly, it’s not like anything’s really changed. It’s always been Leia, Ben, and me. At least for the past couple years.”

“You’re welcome to come to our house,” Jess says. “So long as your reflexes are good. Lauren threw a plate last time.”

“We’re eating at the country club,” Kaydel says. “The chef there was on the Food Network.”

“Adam—my cousin, the one you thought was hot—is coming,” Jess counters. Another competition, this time for Rey.

“The country club has an Olympic-sized swimming pool. We can go swimming after.”

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” Rey says. “I think this year is really important for Leia, with Han and everything…”

“I can blow it off, come by your house instead…” Kaydel says.

Rey knows why she really wants to come. She suspects Kaydel never fully got over Ben, and now that he’ll be coming home for a few days, it’s the perfect opportunity to see him, under the guise of being there for Rey. But maybe she’s just being jaded. “I think she wants it to just be us.”

Kaydel nods. “Maybe we can have a sleepover sometime over the break, like when we were kids?”

Rey pretends to think about it. “Yeah, maybe.”

As Jess steers the conversation back to some hot guy she’s into, something neon orange catches her eye. Across the courtyard, Rose is standing near the iron doors of the cafeteria, handing out xeroxed flyers as students go in and out.

Rey finishes the last of her sandwich quickly, then stands up, swinging her backpack onto one shoulder. “I forgot, I have to speak to Mr. Garcia about a make-up test. See you later.”

When she reaches Rose, she accepts one of the flyers, which is advertising a show on Friday night at the Cantina downtown.

“Who’s ‘The Chrome Troopers’?” Rey wonders.

“They’re this amazing band!” Rose practically vibrates, like she’s had five cups of coffee. “Indie, like dream-pop shoegaze meets post-punk, with a little New York garage rock revival thrown in.”

“So… lots of synthesizers and effects pedals?”

Rose laughs. “Exactly! You should come!”

“I didn’t know they hired you as the promoter,” Rey only half-jokes.

“Oh, well…” Rose blushes. “Finn, my boyfriend, is in it. He plays keyboards. But I swear they’re really good! They’re even getting some attention because some of the members were in an old band together that got a write-up in Stereogum. You probably heard of them, FN-2187? But they broke up after Phasma went to college and Elijah started using heroin again.”

“Yeah, I think I heard of them,” Rey says, remembering when Ben said Poe had cheated on Bazine with someone from the band. “Something about Daft Punk influences?”

Rose scrunches up her nose. “No, not at all. I mean, they all wore helmets for a while, which is why they’re called The Chrome Troopers now, kind of a nod to it… but their sound is totally different. Totally original.”

“Oh, cool,” Rey says, wondering how Rose became such a groupie. Does she have any other friends, or does her life revolve around her boyfriend and his band?

“So you’ll come?”

Rey thinks about it. She really doesn’t want to, but she misses Rose. She’s never really connected with another girl the way she had with her. Definitely not with Kaydel and Jess. Sure, they talk a lot about their fucked-up families, but even then, it’s impersonal, like describing what happened this week on some reality show. Maybe it’s easier that way, to laugh at it so that the tragedy doesn’t touch you. There are definitely times she prefers those kinds of friendships, just like when she prefers a rom-com to an arthouse film. But she’s been missing something deeper. Someone she can actually talk to.

“Sure,” she agrees before giving a small wave goodbye. She then goes inside to find Mr. Garcia, still working on the massive list of coursework she’s missed due to her heat leave.

As she glances down at the flyer again, she figures it beats another night of smoking weed on the roof with headphones on while staring up at the sky, wondering if Ben’s looking up at the same constellations she is. She doesn’t know the names so she invents them, half-remembered from Greek and Roman mythology, Shakespeare, and whatever else she had to study for AP English. _Daisy’s Green Light. Miss Havisham in Her Wedding Dress_. She imagines pointing them out to Ben, who would scoff and tell her the real names. She’d roll her eyes and call him a snob, and then he’d lean over and kiss her. Later, she would name the constellations of his freckles on his skin. Words that don’t translate, just feelings. _Psithurism. Odnoliub. Saudade. Ikigai._

*

When Friday rolls around, Rey has to stop herself from texting Rose with an excuse. She’s actually been getting into a book that Mr. Armstrong recommended to her, _The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle_ , and all she wants to do is read in her pajamas, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea. Especially as it’s drizzling, rivulets of rainwater blurring the world outside the windows.

She’s been doing better in the class, though English was always her strongest subject, so it’s not like she was ever doing poorly. Calc and bio, however… Well, there’s still time to pull things up. She did decently on her SATs last year, and she plans on taking them again in December. Hopefully that will be enough to get her into a good college. Where, she doesn’t know yet. Somewhere she’s never been before.

At one point, she had planned to apply to Brown. But she’d be lying if she said it had anything to do with the academics. She never even looked up what majors they offer on their website. She loves the idea of New England, but as for the rest of it... Ben was right. She can’t move there just for him. She can’t revolve her entire life around his.

“ _Maybe it’s been like that for you till now. But you’re not a kid anymore. You have the right to choose your own life. You can start again. If you want a cat, all you have to do is choose a life in which you can have a cat. It’s simple_.”

After she reads this, she puts a bookmark in, closes the book, and looks out at the rain. She sits with it for a few seconds, imagining the life she wants, even with an emptiness in it that she has to work around.

When she goes into the kitchen for something to eat, she finds Leia standing at the kitchen island, unpacking groceries.

“Is this all for Thanksgiving?” Rey wonders as she peers into a paper bag.

“Some of it,” Leia replies. “It’s just going to be me and you, so I figured turkey cutlets, baked yams, and string beans.”

“Wait, what? Ben’s not coming?”

Leia shakes her head. “No, he said he’s really busy with studying for midterms.”

“What the _fuck_?!” Rey erupts. “He knows how much this means to you! He’s such a selfish, arrogant prick”—she pulls out her phone, already texting him—”who doesn’t care that Han just died, who doesn’t care about anyone but himself, who thinks that—”

She feels Leia’s hand, warm and weathered, upon hers, stopping her.

“Rey, dear, it’s okay,” she says calmly. Too calmly. “It’s hard for him, too. Everyone deals with grief differently, and this is his way. You have to let him be. He’ll come around, you’ll see.”

Rey feels the anger deflate out of her like a popped balloon. She knows Leia’s right. Still, it stings. “It’s just… I really want to see him.”

Leia pulls her into a hug. She smells her perfume mingled with her Alpha scent—calla lilies, white musk, fresh linen, _home_. “I know. Me too. Me too.” She pulls away. “So what do you want for dinner tonight? I was thinking salmon with wild rice. And when we inevitably pick at it and wish for something less healthy, pizza.”

“Oh, I already made plans with Rose, if that’s okay? I can cancel…”

“No, no...” She waves a dismissive hand in the air. “Go out, have fun. Just not too much fun. Say, eleven o’clock curfew? And when you come home at two, I’ll pretend I don’t hear you.”

Rey smiles. Something she hasn't done a lot lately, but her aunt always manages to bring it out of her.

*

Most of the time, things never turn out to be what Rey expects. But The Cantina is exactly what she’d pictured in her mind: a dive bar in downtown LA that looks exactly like every other bar in every other city, with neon advertisements glowing in the window and the smell of acrid beer spilling out. It doesn’t look like anything special from the outside, but when Rey gets her hand stamped at the front door, she realizes it’s what’s inside that counts. Specifically the music drifting out of the back room.

She follows it, weaving past the twenty- and thirty-somethings waiting for PBR at the bar. When she enters the back, she sees how crowded it is, which is something she _didn’t_ expect, especially for a band where half of the members are still in high school.

“You came!” she hears a high-pitched squeal in her ear, right before she feels Rose engulf her in a two-second hug. “I’m so glad!”

“Hey! Yeah, wow, you were right. They’re actually pretty good.”

“I’m manning the merch table, if you want to hang by me. We’ve got shirts, buttons, stickers, patches... Want anything?”

Rey scans the table. “No, that’s okay. No vinyls?” She's only half-joking, the hipsters they are.

“They’re actually working on an EP! There’s a song on it called ‘Fathiers’ that Finn wrote for me. I can’t wait for you to hear it!”

Rey feels a pang of jealousy, wishing she had a musician lover who wrote songs about her. There’s something in the eternalness of it. Or maybe she’s just jealous of their happiness, which is hard to take in large doses when you’re reeling from a break-up and a half.

Two songs later, The Chrome Troopers play “Fathiers,” which Rey only knows because Rose grabs her arm and jumps up and down. It’s slow and folky, like Bon Iver and The Lumineers. It evokes a cabin in the wilderness and moonshine in mason jars. A white dress and cowboy boots. There might be a banjo involved. It’s sweet. It’s catchy.

Rey spends most of the next hour helping Rose sell merch, which is not exactly how she imagined spending the night, but she doesn’t mind. Rose spends most of the time talking about Finn and the band, but eventually she talks about herself, revealing her dream of going to MIT to study mechanical engineering.

After the show, Rey helps Rose pack up the table and carry boxes out the back door, to the old, dented cargo van wedged in the alley.

“This is Finn,” Rose introduces them. “Finn, Rey.”

Finn shakes Rey’s hand, which feels like such an old-fashioned thing to do, but it suits him. “Hey, nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Yeah, you too,” she lies. It’s awkward for a few seconds, so she forces herself to say something else. She figures it’s good practice to be more sociable. “Great show. I heard you’re putting together an EP?”

“Yeah, we’re almost done. Just got to decide on one or two more songs, and the cover.”

“Rey’s a brilliant photographer!” Rose beams. Rey, the brilliant photographer, wants to disappear into the crack in the cement.

“Oh yeah? That’s cool. You’ll have to show me your work.”

“Whose work?” a blond guy she doesn't recognize from school asks as he loads an amp into the back of the van. “Hi, I’m Leo. The drummer.”

“Hey.” Rey waves.

“Look at this,” Rose says to Finn as she scrolls through her phone. She then holds it up to his face. Leo comes up behind him to look too.

“Wow, this is really good,” Leo says. “I like this one the best. The way the light is.”

Rey looks at what they’re talking about. Rose has pulled up Rey’s old Instagram account, one she hasn’t updated since the beginning of junior year. She wishes that crack would grow wider. “Oh, no, that’s just… They’re just some random photos I took a million years ago.”

“Could we use this one for the cover?” Finn’s pointing at a cityscape of LA at dusk, taken from a trail in the canyons. Palm trees dot the pale blue sky, marbled gray fog hanging over the buildings that you can see glitter like a computer chip when you close your eyes. The faint blush of pink in the distance is her favorite part.

“Sure, if you want.” Rey shrugs, as if it’s nothing to her.

“How much do you want for it?” a girl with a strawberry-blonde pixie suddenly says. The lead singer and bassist.

“Um...” Rey has to think.

“We’re going to put it up on SoundCloud, hopefully next week,” Finn says.

“Maybe you can take photos of us for the website?” Leo asks. Finn nods in agreement.

“Oh, um, yeah, sure. Yeah, I could do that.”

“We can’t pay you much,” the girl says. “Like $150? We can give you another $100 for the cover photo.”

“I don’t mind,” Rey says. Truthfully, she’d do it for free.

“Awesome. I was thinking, like, a ‘60s vibe. Vintage cars. Old Hollywood glamour. Technicolor. That kind of thing."

The guitarist—a guy with thick-rimmed glasses who she does recognize—hangs behind the rest of the band, smoking a cigarette and arguing on the phone with what sounds like his girlfriend.

“That’s Dave,” Finn says.

Rey nods. “Will he be cool with me as your photographer?”

“Oh yeah, don’t worry about it,” Leo says. “Hey, we’re gonna go to my place and have a few beers, if you want to come?”

Rey gets the feeling Leo is into her, but she’s not interested. She doesn’t really feel like hanging out with them either, even though they seem nice. “I promised my aunt I’d be home soon,” she lies.

“Mind if I catch a ride home with you?” Rose asks.

Rey agrees, then turns away as Rose kisses Finn goodbye, like their love is a sun glare.

*

“So what did you think?” Rose asks as she turns down the dial. The xx’s “Crystalised” thrums in the car.

“The band’s great.”

“And what did you think about Finn?”

“I like him, he’s nice.”

Rose smiles dreamily. “We’ve only been dating a few months, but I really feel like he could be The One. We connect so well, even with him being an Omega.”

“And he writes you songs. That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah! Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you’re going to do the photos! It’s like you were born to do this.”

Rey considers it. She loves photography. She loves music. She’s never thought about combining them before, but it makes sense. Maybe she could be like Anton Corbijn with his moody monochrome snapshots of Morrissey and Joy Division.

“You know, I’ve missed you,” Rose says as she looks out the rolled-up window, at the wet streets reflecting neon lights as they blur past. “I thought we’d never hang out again.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to call you. I’ve just been pretty busy with school…”

“And Kaydel and Jess.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“It’s okay,” Rose says. “I know they’re cooler than me. And more fun.”

“That’s not true,” Rey assures her, even though it’s true a little.

“Did you want to maybe hang out again? This time, just you and me?”

“Yeah.” Rey smiles. “I’d like that.”

“We can order pizza and watch movies.”

“...and no talking about boys,” Rey says. “I’m _so sick_ of talking about boys.”

Rose laughs. “I know, I’m sorry, I probably talked your ear off about Finn.”

“No, it’s okay. Ignore me, I’m just going through a break-up.”

“Oh my gosh! I’m sorry!” Rose has her hand clasped over her mouth, her eyes wide. “I never even asked you if you were dating anyone.”

“Well, I’m not…”

“Who were you dating?”

“He doesn’t go to St. Augustine’s.”

“Oh.” Rose pauses for a few seconds. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Rey sighs. “It’s not like it’ll change anything. It’s over. He’s…”—she thinks about long black waves and hazel eyes that slope down in the corners—“He’s across the country.”

“Oh? Where?”

Rey licks her lips, wondering if she could trust her. If it gets out somehow… if she tells Finn… she’d be more of an outcast than Rose. Not that Rose is really an outcast; she’s more invisible, fading into the background. The kind of girl most people will see a picture of in the high school yearbook ten years from now and not remember.

But there’s a powerful tug from somewhere inside Rey that makes her want to confide in someone, like a riptide pulling her under. She knows she can stop the words coming out if she tries harder, but she’s tired of fighting against it. “Rhode Island. He’s going to Brown.”

“Oh, like your cousin?”

Rey doesn’t say anything. She lets the silence speak for itself.

“ _Ben?_ You were dating _Ben?_ ”

“Not really. I was dating someone else. Cassian. ...But I had my heat with Ben.”

“Why didn’t you have your heat with Cassian?”

“Cassian’s a Beta. I hate to sound like the alt-right on Reddit, but it never would have worked.”

“Oh,” Rose says, her voice dejected like Rey has just told her Santa Claus doesn’t exist. “You don’t think Betas could be with Omegas?”

Rey feels like an asshole. She can’t believe she said that to Beta Rose, knowing she’s dating an Omega. “I mean... sometimes it can work. I’m just talking about my own experience. I don’t see why you and Finn can’t work. There’s toys you can buy, to help him through his heats. Like a strap-on with an inflatable knot... fake cum... I think there’s a numbing agent in it to help with the cramps...”

She glances over at Rose, who’s blushing furiously. “We haven’t, um, been through that yet...”

Rey would face-palm if she didn’t have both hands on the wheel. She’s forgotten she’s not talking to someone like Kaydel or Jess. She’s scandalizing the poor girl. “Remember when I said to ignore me?”

There’s an awkward silence in the car.

“So what happened with Ben?” Rose thankfully changes the subject. “You went into heat and it just like... _happened?_ ”

“Um, kinda. No, not really, actually. We slept together before.” Rey side-eyes her quickly to gauge her reaction.

“Oh,” Rose says.

Rey waits for her to say more, but she doesn’t. The Cranberries' “Dreams” starts playing, and Rey can’t be sure if Rose is re-thinking their friendship or if she’s just listening to the song. Before she has time to freak out about it, they’re at Rose’s house, the Volvo pulled up to the curb on the quiet suburban street.

“It’s weird,” Rey says. “I know.”

“No, no. I mean, yeah, a little… but it’s not as weird as you think.”

“Really?”

Rose smiles. “I can see it, actually. You and him.”

“There’s no me and him.”

“Why not?”

Rey sighs heavily, all the weight of everything she’s been holding in whooshing out. “He wanted to stay, but he had to go. I had to let him go.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose says, putting a hand on Rey’s arm.

“I know. It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

And for the first time since Rey’s been telling herself this, she believes it.

*

Later that night, in her new queen-sized bed underneath her igloo covers with her headphones on like earmuffs, she scrolls through her Instagram. Stares at the photo the band wants to use for the EP. She’s proud of it, she really is. She hasn’t felt this way since she won that photography contest sophomore year. She feels like she might actually be _good_.

Before she can stop herself, she sends Ben the photo. She’s not sure what’s come over her. Maybe she’s been possessed by the ghost that still lingers in her room, despite all the incense and smudging and good vibes she’s been trying to send out into the universe, with the hope that the universe sends some back.

 **Rey:** _A local band wants to use this as a cover._

She stares at the text thread between them. She’s not sure how much time goes by, but the song’s ended and there’s still no answer. There’s no “read” either, Ben probably having turned it off.

She sinks down into her pillow and closes her eyes. She can feel it again, the wave of everything she tries to forget in the day but drowns her like a tsunami at night. She accepts it all. That it happened. That it’s over.

Her phone vibrates.

Ben’s calling her. Ben never calls anyone, except for Leia. He hates it the way most Millennials do, but a million times more, to the point where Rey wouldn’t be surprised if he’d prefer carrier pigeon over talking on the phone.

Should she answer? Is this rubbing salt in the wound? But salt’s cleansing, she tells herself. This could be good. This could be what both of them need. Maybe they too can be stronger in the cracks, where they’ve broken together.

Rey hits _accept_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there was no Ben in this. But it was an important chap, for Rey to begin to grow beyond him.
> 
> Comments always appreciated, read, re-read, and loved. 🖤


	14. Fire

_It’s okay to have scars, they’ll make you who you are_  
_It’s okay to have fear, as long as you’re not scared of coming here_  


_“Christmas TV” by Slow Club_

* * *

When Rey was a kid, she’d pray for snow every December. She knew it was illogical even without knowing the finer points of a Mediterranean climate, but still, she held out hope for snow days home from school, watching it fall down until it was thick enough to sled down glittering hills. Then later, stepping into a Christmas movie to pick out the perfect fir at a tree farm, the kind with a weathered 1960s Ford pick-up truck parked next to painted wooden signs. But she’s come to realize there’s a different sort of beauty in kitschy aluminum trees and string lights wrapped around palm tree trunks.

Besides, if she wanted to see snow so badly, she knows she could always take up Jess on her invitation to ski in Aspen. But she’s never skied before, and she knows she’d end up spending most of the winter break holed up in the hotel, awkwardly ignoring Jess’s mother as she gets wine-drunk and makes digs at Jess’s father and his wife. And then there’s the fact Kaydel always goes every year, and Rey can only take both of them in small doses. Add any potential blizzards and she’s not entirely certain it won’t end up like _The Shining._

Part of Rey is determined to ignore Christmas this year. It’s never been her favorite holiday. Sure, the presents are nice, as are the seasonal lattes and indie holiday albums. But she’s never been much for the sentimental. It gets to be too much, as sickeningly saccharine as a Hallmark movie. A therapist might say something about it being a product of her upbringing, but she thinks she’d feel this way even if her mother and Han weren’t dead.

Leia loves it though. Twelve AM November 1st, there’s suddenly porcelain figurines of snowy villages on the mantle and a fake evergreen with white and champagne-colored ornaments towering in the living room, like a late-night break-in by Martha Stewart. The only decoration in Rey’s room is a string of rainbow lights hanging on the wall, illuminating her polaroids and art prints. But while Leia knows how to do it tastefully and when to reign it in, Rose overdoses on the holiday like a little kid—the kitschier, the better. Rey’s not entirely unconvinced she hasn’t been abducted by a Christmas-worshipping cult. If she has to be dragged to Target _one more time…_

It’s one of the few times she prefers hanging out with Kaydel and Jess. Not that she’s seen much of either of them lately. Kaydel has been wrapped up in her new boyfriend, and Jess has been as free-spirited and elusive as she’s always been. At least the trips to Target and the mall have resulted in Rey getting most of her shopping done. Jess has shed Wicca for Judaism this month, so Rey already gifted her eight small Hanukkah gifts last week. Mostly from the bins along the registers at Sephora. (Jess, in return, gave Rey a bud of weed that she said looked exactly like a mini Christmas tree.) Kaydel, Rose, and Leia are all getting fancy scented candles. It’s the perfect gift, Rey assures herself. Not laziness.

She still doesn’t know what to give Ben. Every birthday and Christmas, she gives him a gift card to Barnes & Nobles to buy whatever Criterion Collection Blu he doesn’t already have. But this year, she wants it to be something less impersonal. Something that says how much he means to her. But not, like, “I’m still in love with you, let’s run away together and form an indie folk band in the mountains where our babies can play the xylophone and tambourine.” Something slightly less than that.

They’ve been talking almost every single night for a month now. There’s some topics they avoid with a wide breadth like landmines—what happened between them, who they’re dating or interested in. Those things are better left buried so the seeds they’ve planted can have time to grow, covering the earth in healing green until you wouldn’t even know it was ever scorched.

Some nights, she falls asleep to the deep sound of his voice. It’s better than any sleep app; any guided mediation with chimes. She thinks he might have a future in recording audiobooks if archeology doesn’t work out.

*

December 23rd is a half day. The excitement of Christmas and New Year’s is in the air, but even more so, the excitement of not having classes for a week and a half. When the final bell rings, Rey runs directly into Rose, who’s so hyper that Rey thinks she’s now crushing up candy canes and snorting them.

“Ahh I’m so excited!” Rose says, the lights of her reindeer sweater flashing, made to look like it has string lights wrapped around its antlers. She thrusts a wrapped rectangular gift at Rey.

“Rose, it’s not even Christmas Eve.”

“I know! This is part one of your present.”

“I thought we agreed on a twenty-dollar limit…”

“Just open it,” Rose insists as she follows Rey down the hall and out into the parking lot. “You’ll see why I have to give it to you now.”

Rey tears apart the snowmen wrapping to reveal a white cardboard box. When she opens it, she finds an equally ugly Christmas sweater inside it.

“Wow, thanks,” she says with all the acting skills of someone who played Second Servant and Chorus in her high school’s spring production of _Romeo and Juliet_ freshman year.

“If I gave it to you on Christmas, you would only have that day to wear it!”

“Right, yeah.”

“Did you want to wear it now?”

“Oh, um…” Rey pauses in shoving it in the backseat of her car. “Yeah, sure.”

She pulls off her burnt orange sweater—a subconscious longing for Halloween, maybe—and pulls on Rose’s gift. The front is black with a Christmas tree on it, the collar and hem are bright red, the sleeves a candy cane of red and white stripes. Emblazoned above the tree in chunky white capitals: “GET LIT.”

“The tree lights up when you press a button! Get it?”

Rey nods her head and smiles, enjoying seeing Rose beam. “I love it.”

She’s only embarrassed a little when they walk into Starbucks together ten minutes later.

*

When Rey checked her horoscope this morning, it had said that today would bring an arrival of something unexpected that will catch her off-guard. But nothing has really surprised her. Not Mr. Armstrong assigning homework over the holidays, nor Rose’s gift. Not even the barista misspelling her name on the red cup of her gingerbread latte.

But when she turns the key in the lock and opens the front door, she hears strains of Leia’s voice coming from the kitchen. Now _this_ is surprising, as not only is she home before eight, but there’s someone else in the room with her. A male voice hums something in agreement to whatever she’s saying.

Rey stops short and takes a deep breath, half-hoping and half-dreading it’s Luke. He’s only made two appearances in the eight Christmases since Rey’s lived here, but now that Han’s dead, maybe he’s making more of an effort to be here.

Rey drops her backpack on the bottom step leading upstairs, then makes her way to the kitchen, her heart thumping with nervousness and an overabundance of caffeine. The first thing she sees is two mugs of something on the round table in the bay overlooking the backyard. The second things she sees makes her heart stop completely, at least for a beat or two.

God, has it really only been two months since she’s seen him? It feels like a lifetime. A multitude of lifetimes. A reincarnation amount.

“Hey, sunshine,” Ben says, a smile tugging at his lips.

Rey takes him in. He’s leaning back causally in his chair, one black-jeaned leg crossed over his knee, angled towards his mother. He’s wearing a heathered charcoal sweater she doesn’t recognize, but it looks soft and thin and expensive. His hair is shorter, but still long enough to be wavy, wisps of it curling over a hint of the large ears he hides.

“Hey,” Rey hears herself say. No, she’s wrong. It doesn’t feel like a lifetime. It feels like he never left. Or maybe both. Can it feel like forever and only a second at the same time?

“You’ve changed,” he says.

Has she?

Rey instinctively touches her hair. “I got it cut last month.”

“No, I mean”—his hand makes a motion up and down her body—“the Christmas spirit. You’ve become very… festive.”

Rey glances down at her ugly sweater. Oh, of course. _Of course_ she’s wearing the most unattractive thing she now owns when she sees Ben again. It’s like the Law of Exes. She imagines if she ever runs into Cassian again, she’ll be wearing something equally horrendous. Maybe with unwashed hair and a bad zit to top it off.

“It was a gift,” she explains, but Ben’s still smile-laughing at her.

“I don’t think my gift can top that,” he says.

Oh, fuck. Rey still hasn’t gotten anything for him. “I thought you were coming back on Christmas?”

“I wanted to surprise you and Mom.”

“He’s fresh off his flight. Gave me a shock when he showed up at the office,” Leia chimes in, standing up with her mug. “I’ve still got some work to do, but I can do it from home.” She leans down and kisses her son on the cheek, then wipes it away. “Chinese tonight?”

“Sounds good,” he replies. Rey nods in agreement.

Leia places her mug in the sink, then brushes past her on her way to the den off the living room. If Rey didn’t know any better, she could’ve sworn her aunt winked at her.

Across the room, Ben stares at her, a small smile still on his lips, his brown eyes warm like hot chocolate.

They’re alone now. Together. Breathing the same air.

Rey bites her bottom lip. All those late-night hours of talking on the phone and now she doesn’t know what to say. It’s like meeting someone offline for the first time—you get so used to their voice and now all of a sudden there’s a body attached to it. And what a body.

Ben stands up, and oh god, has he gotten taller? No, that’s impossible.

“I still haven’t gotten you your gift,” she blurts out.

“You don’t have to get me anything.” He shrugs. “Or maybe a candle?”

He’s teasing her.

Rey laughs. “Balsam or lavender vanilla?”

Ben looks like he’s pretending to think. “Maybe…” He moves closer to her. “…ylang-ylang and jasmine? With a hint of sea salt and sunscreen.”

Rey’s breath hitches. Not only because he’s a mere two feet away now and getting closer by the second, but because that’s her signature scent. At least according to him.

“I think”—she swallows thickly, having forgotten how—“that they make custom candles on Etsy you can—”

His arms are around her now, warm and tight, and she doesn’t remember what she was going to say because _it’s Ben he’s here._ His sweater is just as soft as it looks. Campfires and earth and petrichor fill her nose. She breathes in so deeply, she wouldn’t be surprised if flowers were to sprout out from the bronchi in her lungs like roots.

“God, I missed you,” she sighs into his shoulder, feeling both grounded by him and light as air. Like a weight she didn’t even know she was carrying had fallen off.

“I missed you too.” She feels his words rumble in his chest like a distant thunderstorm. “You’ve no idea how much.”

Rey giggles like she’s high. And she kind of is. “How much?”

“So much that I changed my flight so I can see you for two extra days.”

“A day and a half,” she corrects him.

Ben pulls back, but only slightly. Just enough to look down at her, their bodies still pressed together, their arms still entwined. “I’ll be here through New Year’s.”

Her eyes drift down to his lips. She can’t help it. “You’re not going anywhere with Hux?”

Every winter break, he’s gone on vacation with him, sometimes with Mitaka and Phasma too. The wrapping paper would still be on the living room carpet when Ben would roll his suitcase out the door, Hux honking his Porsche out front.

“No,” he says. “I’d rather be here. There’s no place I’d rather be.”

Rey smiles, a warm feeling rushing over her, the heat rising to her skin. She blames it on the heavy sweater.

*

It’s just like old times, for better or worse. Rey thinks there should be a word for when things feel different but exactly the same. There probably is, in German or something.

They’re lying next to each other on his bed, the only light coming from the widescreen TV as _Krampus_ plays. Earlier in the evening, they were watching the slasher _Black_ _Christmas_ in the living room downstairs as they ate dinner straight out of the oyster pails, Leia shaking her head the whole time, asking why they can’t just watch _It’s a Wonderful Life._

Now they’re alone again. It’s both reliving and nerve-wracking. But what does Rey have to be nervous about? They’re just friends. Nothing’s going to happen. They worked too hard to get to this point, and besides, he’s probably still dating Bazine.

“So have you been a good girl this year?” she hears Ben ask as the clown jack-in-the-box devours one of the kids.

Rey looks at Ben, to find he’s watching her and not the movie. Is he flirting? “No,” she says. “I’m on the naughty list.”

The corner of his mouth crooks up. “Oh, me too. Didn’t see your name there.”

“You must not have been looking.”

“Oh, I’m always looking.”

Rey bites her bottom lip to keep from smiling, turning back to the screen out of shyness. Which is kind of ridiculous, considering she knows what he looks like when he cums inside her. “So does being on the naughty list mean I get a lump of coal?”

“I’ve heard spanking, but then again, HR might’ve gotten involved.”

Rey laughs silently, trying not to imagine him pulling down her jeans and underwear and spanking her right now. He’s clearly not serious. Guys flirt all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.

“That doesn’t sound like a punishment,” she says. “Now being tied up and forced to watch cheesy Christmas movies set in a small town with a city girl and a rugged lumberjack with a golden retriever is another story.”

“So tied up then, got it.”

Rey rolls her eyes playfully as she shakes her head, but she can’t stop smiling.

“ _Die Hard_ after this?” Ben asks after a few more minutes have passed in gory Christmas goodness.

“Sure.” Just then, her phone buzzes in her pocket. Rey pulls it out, seeing a text from Rose.

 **Rose:** _I’m sorry, I know it’s late… I hope I’m not bothering you. But if you’re up can you call me as soon as you can?_

“Hey, mind if I take this?” Rey asks, already standing up.

Ben shakes his head.

Once she’s in the hallway, she calls Rose, who answers on the second ring.

“Hey, what’s up?” Rey wonders as she heads into her room.

Rose sniffles on the other end halfway across town. “Nothing,” she says. “I’m just… I…” A sob cuts her off like a sudden tidal wave.

“What’s wrong?”

She hears Rose take a deep breath, pulling herself up long enough to say, “I think Finn just broke up with me.”

“What? When?”

“Half an hour ago. He came over and asked if we could talk. He said he needs some space to figure things out. That he thinks he might still have feelings for someone else.”

Rey’s never really been good at comforting other people. She never knows what to say, but she tries anyway. “I’m so sorry, Rose. It’s his loss, seriously. You’re amazing and kind and smart and beautiful, inside and out.”

Rose sniffles. “No I’m not,” she says in a small voice.

“You are. Don’t let some guy determine your self-worth.” She tries to put it in a way that Rose will connect with. “Hey, remember _The Princess Diaries?_ ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ Eleanor Roosevelt.”

“I know,” Rose says, but she still doesn’t sound convinced.

“Did you want me to come over?”

“Oh no, you don’t have to…”

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

Rose sniffles again. “Okay. Thanks Rey.”

After they hang up, Rey returns to Ben’s room. For a few seconds, she just stares at him, remembering how it felt when he broke her heart. “Hey, so… That was Rose. Her boyfriend just broke up with her.”

“Is she okay?”

“Not really. I’m going to head over now. Raincheck on _Die Hard?_ ”

“Of course,” he replies. “Call me if you need anything?”

She smiles. “I will.”

“Oh hey, Rey?” she hears him call after her as she’s halfway out the door.

“Yeah?”

“Tell her to pick up something. Knitting, writing, drawing—it doesn’t matter what. It helped me when I—when we… well, you know.”

“You picked up knitting?” Rey tries to imagine his large hands holding knitting needles. She pictures him in a handknit fisherman’s sweater and beanie, on rocky cliffs somewhere off the salty sea of Scotland.

“No. Music.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I found a used Les Paul for only $500. I don’t know why I bought it. I haven’t played since I was fifteen.”

“I remember Han made you a guitar one year for your birthday.”

A weight seems to pull Ben down, a sadness sinking him like an anchor. “Yeah.”

“Did you write any songs?” She tries to change the subject.

“A few,” he admits sheepishly. “They weren’t very good.”

“Can I hear one?” She’s dying to know what the lyrics are. What the chords sound like. How he really feels about her, expressed in the purest form there is.

Ben shakes his head.

“Someday?”

“…Someday.”

There’s so much in that one word, Rey realizes. Something she can’t quite fathom. It’s far away and intangible. Like a quantum mechanics equation or the size of the universe. It’s a cold word. A lonely word. But there’s promise in it too. A flicker of something, an ember, waiting for the right conditions to catch.

*

When Rey arrives at Rose’s house, it’s like she’s stumbled through a wormhole and she’s fourteen all over again. She hasn’t been in Rose’s room since then, but looks exactly the same. Lavender walls, science fair trophies, books everywhere.

“So what happened?” Rey asks as she sits on the floor against the twin bed, _Elf_ playing in the background.

Rose hands her a _Beauty and the Beast_ mug of hot chocolate and marshmallows, then takes a sip from her own _Lilo & Stitch_ one. She sits down next to Rey. “He said he needs time. I thought at first he was talking about being busy with the band, or maybe with school, but then he said”—she swipes at her eyes with her sleeve—“that he thinks he might still have feelings for someone else.”

“Who?”

“He wouldn’t tell me, but…” She bites her lip. “You promise not to say anything?”

“Of course.”

“Leo—remember Leo, the drummer? He told me that Finn used to have a thing with _Poe Dameron._ ” She looks at Rey with wide eyes, waiting for the shock to dawn on her as it clearly did for her.

“Ah, so that’s who Ben was talking about,” Rey mumbles.

“What? You knew?”

“Kind of,” Rey admits. “I mean, I knew Poe had a thing with someone from FN-2187. I didn’t know it was Finn though, I swear.”

Rose chuckles harshly, a wet sound with unshed tears. “Apparently he’s back in town for Christmas, visiting friends and stuff.”

“I’m so sorry, Rose.”

“I just… I really thought he loved me. I know I’m just a Beta but I thought… I just…” Her face crumples. “I love him so much, Rey.”

Rey puts her arm around Rose. She doesn’t really know Finn, but she kind of hates him for ruining Rose’s favorite holiday. “I know.”

“Where does that love go now?”

Rey’s thoughts drift to Ben. “It… transforms. Think of it like the first law of thermodynamics.”

“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed,” Rose recites on autopilot.

“Exactly. I know you don’t believe me, but you won’t always feel this way, I promise. Someday you’ll look at him and it won’t hurt anymore. And you’ll realize it’s changed to a friendship kind of love. Or even if it doesn’t, the love you have to give will go somewhere else, to someone else.”

Rey knows from experience that this probably won’t lessen the empty ache Rose feels right now. But she hopes it helps at least a little.

“Did you want to open your present?” Rey asks in an exaggeratedly excited voice. Maybe the frosted cranberry-scented candle will cheer her up. But Rose shakes her head.

Suddenly, she remembers Ben’s advice from earlier. “Hey, did you want to do something?”

Rose sniffles. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Anything.” Rey glances around the room, landing on _Elf_ during a scene where Buddy is making breakfast with spaghetti and Pop-tarts, remembering Rose’s love of _The Great British Bake-Off_. “Did you want to bake something?”

“Um… sure.”

And that’s how they end up making sugar cookies at one in the morning, covered in flour, licking batter off the spatula, getting red and green sprinkles everywhere.

*

A winter wonderland in Southern California wasn’t the only dream Rey had a child. There was a brief phrase where she wanted to be a figure skater. She blames watching _Ice Castles_ and _Ice Princess_ one too many times. She also wanted to be an astronaut and a ballerina too, maybe an astronaut ballerina, but that’s beside the point.

The ten-year-old inside her is ridiculously excited right now, even as she tries to hide it behind a blasé exterior, as cool as the ice rink in front of her. As she laces up figure skates, she glances at Ben in her peripheral as he laces up hockey skates.

When he’d suggested they go to Pershing Square, she assumed he meant to go last-minute Christmas shopping or to see the tree. But now here they are, lacing up their rented skates side-by-side on a chilly bench as Christmas music plays over the loudspeakers.

“Are you ready?” he asks as he stands up, holding out his hand.

Rey puts her hand in his. He helps her up, but to her surprise, he doesn’t let go. As they walk hand-in-hand to the edge of the rink, she can’t help but feel how natural this is. How right.

She’d like to believe that once she’s out on the ice, she’d be gracefully gliding, but she’s only been skating a few times, and that was all the way back in elementary school. The ice is pretty cut up from all the other people, which snags on her blades. At once point, she nearly falls face-first, but Ben’s there to steady her. As she grips him tight, she thinks maybe it’s a good thing she’s so bad at this.

“Did you finish all your shopping?” she asks after the second lap around.

“Yeah, did you?”

Rey thinks about the gift she hastily wrapped a few hours ago, over-taped with the edges not aligned whatsoever. After she left Rose’s house, she went home and rummaged through her desk drawers, finally finding the negative of it in the envelope. Walgreens couldn’t develop it in time; they would have to send it out. Three independent camera shops later, she was finally able to find one that was open and willing to develop it that afternoon. “Yep.”

Another lap around the rink. A blonde woman in yoga pants passes them, but not without giving Ben the eye. He pretends not to notice, but Rey knows he does.

“So what did you get Bazine?” she asks casually, breaking their unspoken rule.

“Um… we uh… we broke up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” She may be tripping all over the ice, but her lies are smooth. “When did that happen?”

Ben doesn’t say anything for a full fifteen seconds. Rey counts. “During your heat. It was an awkward phone call.”

“You broke up with her over the phone?”

“Yeah, well… we were, you know… busy.”

Despite the forced chilly air, Rey feels heat rise to her face. “Ah.”

“What about you? How’s things with Colin?”

“We broke up,” she says, not even bothering to correct Cassian’s name anymore. “About a month ago.” She can feel him do the calculation in his head.

“Ah,” he echoes her, almost teasingly.

“So no other girlfriends to buy for?” She knows she shouldn’t ask, but she can’t help herself.

“No,” he answers. She thinks he’s maybe a little uncomfortable, but then he asks, “Any new boyfriends? Have you’ve gotten married in the two months since I’ve last seen you?”

Rey laughs. “Oh yeah. He’s sixty-two. Wealthy, you know.”

“Plan on killing him for the will then?”

“Yep. I’ll need your help of course, as my lover.” The second it slips out of her mouth, Rey inwardly cringes. Leave it to her to turn a joke into something too close to the truth.

But thankfully, he goes with it. “Only if they change me to the pool boy in the _Law & Order_ reenactment.”

They begin to get the hang of it. They’re still a little awkward, a little unsure, but they move more steadily on their own two feet, side-by-side, together.

*

Christmas Eve dinner is served on the good china in the living room they only use for holidays. Rey’s stuffed full of roast beef and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, along with glazed carrots, green beans, and rolls, yet she still devours a plate of gingerbread cookies as they sit together in the living room. _It’s a Wonderful Life_ is playing on the TV as Leia begins handing out presents from under the fake evergreen.

Rey tears the gold paper covered in holly. The box advertises a 50-megapixel Canon DSLR. She excitedly gets up and hugs her aunt. “Thank you so much!”

“There’s more,” she says, handing her another wrapped box. A telephoto lens.

“You shouldn’t have. This is too much,” Rey says, gripping it to her chest.

“Oh, nonsense. You’ll be needing it.”

“Is Rey practicing to be a paparazzo?” Ben jokes from the couch across from them, a nice wool coat in his lap.

“No, she’s going to be studying photography at the Pratt Institute.” Leia beams.

Ben looks at Rey, clearly surprised by this revelation. “Is she?”

“Yeah,” Rey says, feeling almost guilty for not telling him, but there never seemed to be the right time. “I found out a few days ago.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do when you leave.” Leia sighs. “Both of you, all the way across the country. At least you won’t be too far from one another.”

181.1 miles. Three hours and fifteen minutes or so, depending on traffic. Not that Rey looked it up or anything.

She looks back at Ben, but he’s opening another gift. Her gift. He stares down at it.

“What’s that?” she hears Leia ask.

The Adam’s apple in his neck bobs. After a few seconds, he holds it up. She can’t be certain, but it looks like his eyes are glassy, the yellow string lights of the tree reflecting in them.

Leia smiles, reaching for Rey’s hand with her own warm, weathered one.

In a way, Han’s not dead. Not really. He’s right here with them, alive in their hearts, forever leaning over the Ford Falcon on a bright summer day in 35mm, black-and-white, blown up into 11x20, encased in a simple silver frame.

*

Christmas morning, Leia drags her son and niece to a 10 AM Mass, even though they never go to church and they’re not even Catholic. But neither of them say anything. On the way out, they light a prayer candle, the flame glowing beautifully through the frosted dark green glass.

When they get home, Leia makes them all pancakes, scrambled eggs, and coffee as Sinatra and Bing Crosby croon from a _Christmas with the Rat Pack_ CD.

The rest of the day is spent snacking and lounging about, half-watching whatever Christmas movies are running all day on TV.

After dinner, Rey retreats to her room and unwraps the clove and lemongrass candle she bought for Luke. She lights it as a prayer candle of her own. For Luke, for Leia, for Han, for Ben, for Rose. For college and a bright future ahead. For another love someday. But to love herself most of all.

*

Rey checks the time on her iPhone. 12:02 AM. Christmas is officially over. Already the post-holiday malaise has settled over her like a hangover.

The rainbow string lights glow cheerfully in the darkness of the room. She stares at them without really seeing them as she lies on her bed, drifting along to “Blood Bank” by Bon Iver. The world feels quiet, still. Like the earth’s stopped turning.

She tries not to be disappointed that Ben hadn’t gotten her anything. Maybe he was like her and he didn’t know what to get, and then it got to be too late. Or maybe the ice skating was the gift. Who knows. She tries to assure herself that it’s better than a token gesture like a pair of socks. That would be worse.

She closes her eyes. Imagines being in New York next winter, seeing snow for the first time as it drifts softly down and gathers in the grooves of the hundred-year-old bricks of Brooklyn brownstones.

Suddenly, she feels a light touch on her hand. She opens her eyes to find Ben looking down at her.

She pulls off her headphones, sitting up. “Come to cash that raincheck on _Die Hard?_ ”

He shakes his head, holding out his hand. She takes it, following him out of her bedroom, down the steps, through the darkened living room, into the kitchen. He slides open the door to the backyard.

The pool glows aquamarine.

“Are going for a swim?” she wonders. “My suit is upstairs.”

Ben shakes his head again. He leads her around the perimeter, to the pool house in the corner of the backyard, surrounded by ferns.

“You’re going to make me clean the pool?” she half-jokes.

He doesn’t say anything. He simply opens the door and flicks the light, but instead of a regular incandescent bulb, the room glows red. There’s still nylon skimmer nets and bins of chlorine tablets, but it’s been moved to a corner, making way for tables covered with an enlarger, plastic trays, and chemical jugs for processing. Film clips on wire crisscross above them.

“You… you made me a darkroom?” She looks back at Ben incredulously, to find he’s staring at her, waiting for her reaction.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it,” she says, a little out of breath from the shock. “I can’t believe you did this.”

“I know you’re going off to college next year but… hopefully you’ll still get to use it. I know Leia just got you a fancy new digital camera…”

“Ben, seriously, I love it. Thank you.” She hugs him tightly, fiercely. When she pulls back, she sees warmth there. That ember grows brighter.

They say mankind’s first invention was fire. It brought us out of the darkness, beginning the long journey from savagery to civility. Cooking food allowed the more primitive humans to develop large, complex brains, eventually turning us into the humans of today. But the high intellect came with a price. We’re the only animal capable of evil; of cruelty for cruelty’s sake. But with darkness comes light. Music, mathematics, science, stories, poetry, art. A drum beat kicking in. A line that sends shockwaves through your body. Sacrifice. The ability to say, “I love you.”

When Rey looks at Ben, she sees it all.

“I love you,” she says with as much meaning as she can imbue, hoping he knows she won’t take it back this time.

Ben’s lips fall open. He was probably expecting the hug, the thank you, but she’s sure he wasn’t expecting _that_.

“I love you too,” he says. “Rey…”

She leans forward, pressing her lips to his, cutting him off. It’s only a matter of seconds before their mouths open to one another, the kiss deepening, her hands tangling in his shorter hair. She makes a note to ask him to grow it out again.

They make their way over to where he’s set up a futon, a Mexican falsa blanket thrown over it. Soon he’s on top of her, shimmying her jeans down and settling in between her legs. As he goes to unbutton his own jeans, she bites her bottom lip, her heart pounding with excitement and hope.

Is this the last final throes of their affair, like a white dwarf of a dying star exploding into a supernova? Or is this the beginning of something else? She remembers what she said to Rose about the first law of thermodynamics—that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it can only change form. Maybe their connection can never be destroyed either. Their love will always be there, no matter the distance, no matter the obstacles. Maybe they’ll never be together. Maybe they will but it won’t work out in the end. It doesn’t matter. She loves him. He loves her. They’re here together, their skin glowing under the red light, and right now, it’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re almost at the end. I hope this wasn’t too fluffy, but I figured you all deserve it after sticking through all the angst for so long. 🤍
> 
> Part one of the epilogue takes place next summer.


	15. Pacific Standard Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At 9.7K words (23 pages in Word!), this is the longest chapter I’ve ever written. (Typically I hover around 4K words, give or take.)
> 
> There will _eventually_ be one more epilogue, set four years after this one. It’s much shorter; only about 2K words. But it’s really just the cherry on top of a hot fudge sundae, so consider this fic complete.

_So show me family_  
_All the blood that I will bleed_  
  
_“Ho Hey” by The Lumineers_

* * *

**June**

On Rey’s bookshelf, there’s a beat-up paperback of _The Catcher in the Rye_ that she never returned to English freshman year. Underlined in blue ink on one of the yellowed, dog-eared pages is the quote: “I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it.”

She’s reminded of it now, sitting on a metal fold-up chair in the middle of St. Augustine’s football field, the sharp, zingy smell of freshly mowed grass wafting up from the earth. Through the polarized lenses of her Wayfarers, she glances around at the rest of the graduating class, all decked out in their nicest clothes underneath their nylon gowns—the boys in black, the girls in green. Meanwhile, Rey’s wearing a light floral sundress from Forever 21 under hers, and when she crosses the stage, she’ll be doing so in sandals. Not four-inch stilettos like what Kaydel is wearing.

Honestly, she would have been perfectly happy to pick up her diploma from the office. Saturdays are meant for sleeping in until noon, not for going to school when you don’t have to. But she knows how much this means to Leia, so here she is, one large, iced hazelnut coffee later. And maybe it’s a good thing, she guesses, to say goodbye. She’s not used to doing it, the universe not often giving her the chance to.

She looks past the palm trees along the perimeter of the field, towards the white stucco building she spent the last four years of her life in.

It wasn’t all bad. Like the art classes with Ms. Black, who taught her how to use a darkroom. Or the Friday night football games she used to hang out at with Rose, the cold metal of the bleachers seeping through their jeans as they gossiped about other girls and obsessed over crushes, the school year so new she could smell freshly-sharpened pencils in the autumn air. Or the dances she used to go to before she was invited to house parties, though there were times she had more fun in a stuffy auditorium with glittery decorations and bad ‘90s pop than at Mitaka’s ragers.

He’s having one tonight; one “last blow-out” her friends are trying to drag her to, as if he’s not going to be throwing parties all summer. As if he’s not going to be throwing parties well into his twenties, creeping around the 7-Eleven for high school girls to invite. And besides, Rey has other plans.

She squints up at the bleachers, knowing her aunt is somewhere with a point-and-shoot camera at the ready for when the “S”s are called.

And Ben, next to her.

Ben, fresh off his early morning flight from Rhode Island an hour ago. He hadn’t even had time to drop his duffel bag in his room before he was shooed out the door by Leia, then grilled relentlessly about how college is going the entire ride to St. Augustine’s, as if she doesn’t talk to him every weekend.

Though maybe Rey’s being a bit unfair, considering she talks to Ben every day. But seeing him in person after five long, agonizing months—can she be blamed for wanting more than a “Hey”? She’s been waiting for this moment ever since he left a few days after New Year’s. Five months of texts, late-night calls, and even later-night phone sex is nothing compared to being in his orbit again, his woodsy scent filling her lungs down to her core, his hair looking softer than she remembers it, his lips—

She needs to stop that train of thought, otherwise she’s going to go in heat right here and now.

She’d had her last one two months ago, at the end of April, the jacaranda trees in full bloom. She spent those six delirious days with one hand on her vibrator and the other gripping her phone as Ben coaxed her through, the windows wide open to cool her feverish skin, violet petals blowing into her room. He must’ve emailed his professors a request for rut leave, because she doesn’t remember ever hanging up. Not once.

For weeks afterwards, she was still finding petals in the most unlikely of places. Underneath her pillow. Inside her sweater. Between the pages of _Mansfield Park_.

He’d once been adamant that long-distance relationships don’t work, but she thinks they’re doing pretty damn good. He even overnighted a panty vibe to her, which he can control 3,000 miles away through an app. It was certainly something to suddenly feel the vibrations in the middle of 5th period calc. More than one Alpha had turned his head as she struggled not to come, squirming in her seat, crossing and re-crossing her legs as she bit her bottom lip so hard, she drew blood.

She still has to get him back for that.

“Rey Skywalker,” she suddenly hears the principal’s voice boom over the mic, interrupting her many fantasies of exactly how she’s going to do that.

She stands up, a little dizzy for sitting so long with the sun beating down, then makes her way towards the stage. A few steps up, a handshake, and a rolled-up piece of paper later, she’s heading back to her seat, an official high school graduate, the summer stretched out ahead in an endless weekend. She’s got Ben all to herself for nearly three months, and she plans on making up for lost time.

*

The turquoise water ripples white underneath Rey’s yellow inflatable raft. Kaydel is lounged on a hot pink one next to her, while Jess is sitting in one that looks like a chocolate glazed donut with rainbow sprinkles. They pass a watermelon-flavored joint back and forth as “Bad Girls” by M.I.A. plays over the Bluetooth speakers.

On the concrete shore, Rose idly moves her legs in the pool as she eats a hot dog Leia cooked on the grill.

“They were impressed I was able to take two knots,” Jess over-shares as usual. “Especially at the same time.”

“God, lucky,” Kaydel says. “I could barely take Ben’s.”

Rey feels a flash of jealousy shoot through her veins, but it’s dulled, distant, like a lightning storm miles away, too stoned to care that much. She reminds herself it was nearly a year ago.

“How were you able to take two at the same— _oh_ ,” Rose says, her face reddening.

“It wasn’t without prep,” Jess explains. “Lots of lube and patience. I definitely recommend an oil-based slick, not water or silicone.”

Rose nods, obviously pretending not to be the virgin that she is.

“How did you meet them?” Kaydel wonders.

“On KnotNow.”

“I thought that was only for Alphas and Omegas,” Rey says. “Did you pretend to be an Omega?”

“No, they added a Beta option, though it took me _forever_ to find an Alpha not looking for Omega pussy. And then when I met up with him at the hotel bar, he introduced his gorgeous friend from New Zealand, and, well… how could I pass that opportunity up?”

“I’m so jealous,” Kaydel whines. “Call me next time, you greedy bitch.” She splashes Jess.

“What about you?” Jess is asking Rey. “If I were lucky enough to be an Omega, I’d be stuffed full of Alpha cock every night. Or are you still hung up on Cassian?”

Rey can feel Rose staring at her, burning a hole through her forehead like that time her joint burned a hole in her favorite hoodie. “No, that was forever ago.”

“Rey won’t even use a heat/rut app when her heats hit,” Kaydel says authoritatively.

“That’s not true. Remember Poe?” Rey purposely leaves out Ben and last October. She’s so focused on trying not to seem like a prude while also not coming across as a depraved slut who fucked her cousin, that she forgets Poe is a sore spot for Rose.

“Oh, speaking of Poe…” Jess takes a dramatic pause to exhale a huge cloud of smoke that drifts up into the bluebird sky. "I heard he mated _Finn Storm_. Can you believe it? That’s like getting married—”

“Even more permanent,” Rey says.

“—and at our age!” Jess continues. “It’s not the 19-fucking-50s. Now he’s stuck with one cock for the rest of his life.”

“But an _Alpha_ cock,” Kaydel points out. “I don’t know, it’s kind of romantic. Former fuckboy falls in love and makes the ultimate commitment. It’s like the plot of every Alpha-Omega rom-com.”

Rey glances over at Rose, who appears very interested in the kettle chips on her paper plate.

“Or he mated him in blind lust, and now they’re forced to be together until they die,” Jess says. “I’m actually happy I’m not an Omega. No Alpha can tie me down. I’ll be fucking Alphas until I’m 90.”

“What about Omegas?” Kaydel wonders, hogging the joint.

“God, no. They’re needy as fuck.” She glances at Rey. “No offense.”

Rey rolls her eyes behind her sunglasses.

“I’m actually, um...” Rose squeaks. “I’m dating one. Kind of. We just went on our third date the other night.”

Rey, Kaydel, and Jess look at Rose, all of them surprised but for different reasons—Rey because Rose never divulged this info until now, and Kaydel and Jess because they’re clearly boyfriend-challenged.

Rey’s the first one to react. “Seriously? That’s great! I’m so happy for you.”

“His name’s Will,” she reveals with a secret smile. “We met at the library. He tripped over me as I was reading in the stacks.”

“Only _you_ would go to the library in the summer,” Jess mutters. “Does he call you every hour? Cry at every small thing? …Do you have to peg him?”

“He’s not like that,” Rose defends her kind-of boyfriend, cheeks aflame. “He’s sensitive, yeah, and chivalrous, but he’s also very… manly. It’s just my luck to find a great guy right before I’m about to go to MIT.”

“You’ve got the whole summer,” Rey says. “And long distance isn’t so bad.”

“How would you know?” Kaydel asks, and maybe Rey’s just really paranoid from the weed, but she detects a hint of suspicion in her voice.

“I have friends who’ve done it,” Rey lies smoothly. “I _do_ have other friends other than you, you know.”

The kitchen door slides open, Leia popping her head out. “Do you girls want anything else to eat?”

“No thank you, Mrs. Solo,” Jess says sweetly, turning on the innocent charm. “I should actually get going. Bible study, right Kay?”

Rey rolls her eyes. “She knows you’re going to a party.”

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Kaydel asks as she slips off the raft and into the water. Jess is already at the shallow end steps.

“No, that’s okay. There’s an Alpha/Omega adaptation of _Jane Eyre_ I’ve been wanting to rent.”

“’K, I’ll text you later?”

“Sure.”

“Did you want to come?” Kaydel asks Rose as she dries off with a beach towel.

“Oh! Um…” Rose glances at Rey as if maybe this is a trap, but her secret longing for popularity—even with high school now over—wins out. “Sure?”

Jess doesn’t look too keen on the idea, giving Kaydel a pointed look, but Kaydel just ignores her. They’re not the nicest of girls, but it’s not like they’d ever go full-on _Carrie_ with a bucket of pigs’ blood. At most, they’ll ditch her soon as they get there, and she’ll spend the rest of the night standing awkwardly next to the keg. And if she needs a ride home, well, she’s a big girl, and that’s what Uber was invented for.

After they leave, Rey goes inside, eager to see if Ben’s up from his nap yet. If not, she’ll wake him up, too impatient to wait any longer. She doesn’t even care that it’s still daylight and Leia’s not yet asleep. Her aunt doesn’t know yet; they’ve been waiting until the right moment to tell her, and while Rey doesn’t care if she never finds out, Ben wants to do it right. In person.

Maybe she’ll hear them fucking and then they won’t have to tell her. Leia, as a stereotypical WASP with a mild drinking problem, will pretend she doesn’t know anything, and everything will go on just as before.

“Rey?” She hears Leia’s voice from the couch just as she’s about to head upstairs.

“Yeah?”

Leia stands up, and when she does, Rey sees she’s holding something small wrapped in silver paper. “I want to give you your graduation present.”

Rey excitedly bounds over to her. “You didn’t have to get me anything!”

“It’s actually from Han. It’s something he picked out last spring. As you can tell, he wrapped it. I was going to give it to you for your birthday a few months ago, but”—Leia smiles sadly—“this felt more right.”

A plucked string vibrates behind Rey’s eyes and nose, a sharp sting of unshed tears. She stares down at the gift, the paper looking like he got into a fight with it and had to tape it dead. She almost doesn’t want to open it, but she does, pulling it away to reveal a mint-colored box. _Olivia Burton London_ is printed on it in gold, surrounded by pink and purple blossoms.

She lifts the lid.

It’s a watch. A very pretty watch, dreamy and delicate, with pastel watercolor flowers on one side of the rose gold dial, attached to a cream leather strap.

“Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Rey insists. “It’s beautiful.” She looks up at her aunt, clutching the box to her chest. “Thank you.”

“I know all you kids these days have your smart watches, but Han insisted a regular old watch was timeless.”

“It is,” Rey agrees.

“I wish he could have seen you graduate today.” Leia gently brushes a stray strand of hair away from Rey’s eyes, tucking it behind her ear. “I wish your mother could have, too. She would've been so proud of the young woman you’ve become.”

The tears finally spill, but it’s only a light drizzle. No storm warnings. No need to escape to higher ground. “I’m glad you were there. I’m glad you’re _here_.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Leia promises, pulling her into an embrace as warm as milk and chocolate chip cookies and kisses after bruised knees. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

“You sure about that?” Rey mutters under her breath, half-joking, thinking about how her aunt’s going to react when she finds out her niece is dating her son. It was one thing to be accepting of Ben helping her through her heat; quite another to accept her as a serious partner and potential future mate.

Leia pulls back, beaming. “You’re like a daughter to me, you know. The daughter I’ve always wanted.”

Rey doesn’t dare hope to be her daughter-in-law someday. Doesn’t dare let her mind go to white lace and wildflower bouquets. Faerie lights strung above an outdoor reception on a summer evening, glowing like fireflies above tables of starched linen and fine china. A gold band on Ben’s left hand, telling every beautiful woman eyeing him in a café or bar that he’s taken. She’d marry him tomorrow if he asked, Jess and the rest of her friends be damned.

“I have one more present for you,” Leia says. “I’ll give it to you if you promise to do something for me.”

“What?”

Leia sighs heavily. “Luke’s in town. He came for your graduation, albeit two hours late. He called a little while ago, asking if he could see you.”

“No, _absolutely not,_ ” Rey says, her arms crossed. “I have nothing to say to him.”

“I understand. I really do, honey. But if you don’t see him—if you hold onto a grudge and something happens later on—you’ll always regret it. Trust me, I speak from experience.”

Rey’s shaking her head, but she knows she’ll end up doing it anyway. “So you’re bribing me, then?”

Leia chuckles. “Yes. I’m a politician, after all. But don’t worry, it’ll be worth it.”

“Fine,” Rey sighs. “I’ll do it for you. But not tonight. Tomorrow?”

“I’ll tell him,” Leia says. “Thank you, Rey. It means a lot to me. And I’m sure to him, too”

Rey doubts that, but she nods anyway. He’s probably looking to clear his conscience—maybe as part of some “amends” thing they’re preaching on the commune. She really doesn’t care. She’ll give him exactly five minutes, counted down using her new watch.

*

Rey takes a quick shower to wash off the lingering chlorine. She doesn’t have the patience to blow-dry her hair, letting it fall in damp, disheveled wisps that brush her shoulders, drops of water dripping down her skin.

In her room, she slips on her sundress from earlier. She doesn’t bother with a bra, undoing the top two buttons to tease a hint of sun-kissed skin, the right sleeve sliding down her shoulder. A dab of lilac perfume between her breasts, but nowhere else—she knows how much he likes her natural scent.

She puts underwear on just so she can feel Ben take it off.

*

It sounds like electric sex coming from Ben’s room. The energetic beat of “Wolf Like Me” by TV on the Radio is reverberating through the walls.

So he’s up. Good.

Rey leans against his doorframe, her arms crossed casually, knowing somehow that he’ll sense her. The bond between them may be bite-less, but it’s strong. It’s amplified right now with only a thin piece of wood separating them; it feels like a guitar plugged into an amp with the volume dialed up to eleven, the current surging _back_ and _forth_ and _back_ and _forth_ in an endless feedback loop. She thinks she can even see it in the air. Charged particles that make her body buzz and hair stand on end.

Not two seconds later, the door swings open. Ben’s standing there shirtless, black jeans slung low on his hips. Her eyes roam down the wide expanse of his bare chest, dotted with freckles like palm trees along Sunset; down his abs; down the trail of wiry black hairs that disappear into the denim. She lingers on his bulge before dragging her gaze back up, staring straight into him like an arrow hitting the bullseye, that feeling of _rightness_. His pupils are blown out, a black hole she falls into, every hint of hazel swallowed by pure animalistic desire.

Apparently Ben can’t wait a second longer. He rushes forward like a riptide, his palms spanning hot on either side of her face, crashing down on her. She stumbles backwards, nearly going under before gaining her footing again.

The kiss instantly shifts into open-mouth, tongues furiously tangling as they try and devour each other. It’s messy and wet and desperate. It’s searing her nerve endings. She can’t think. All she can do is feel.

Somehow, in the chaos of limbs and uncontrolled passion, he pulls her into his room, slamming the door behind them. It shakes the drywall.

One of his hands moves to the back of her head, fisting her damp hair as the other slides down her back, squeezing her ass, crushing their hips closer together. She melts into him like a dropped strawberry ice cream on a sizzling summer pavement. Her knees give out, Ben grasping her even tighter, looming over her as she’s bent slightly backwards.

Another crash of the wave as Ben surges forward, staggering Rey back until she feels her back hit the wall. The bookshelf next to them shakes, a few books crashing haphazardly to the floor.

He breaks for air, his chest heaving against hers as he presses her against the cool wall, the heat from his skin scorching through the thin cotton of her dress. She bares her neck as he begins kissing it, starting from behind her ear to the v of her throat, then around to the other side before burying his head in the crook, sucking on her mating gland.

Shivers are streaking down her spine, electric blue.

His kisses move lower, to her breastbone. Lower, between her breasts. Lower, his palms sliding down the sides of her body. Once he reaches the bare skin of her thighs, he grabs the hem of her dress and yanks it up. She lifts her arms up to help him as he pulls it off over her head. He tosses it somewhere, who the fuck cares where.

Skin against skin.

One of his hands grips her hands together, her arms stretched above her head. The other reaches down inside her underwear, his thick fingers teasing against her folds, already swollen and wet, ready, waiting for him, waiting for five excruciating months.

He slips one finger inside, but it’s not enough. She whines, partially because he’s not letting her touch him and partially because he’s not already fucking her.

Ben scrapes his teeth against her mating gland. Stars are sparking in her vision. That shuts her up.

Another finger added, in and out, in and out, faster now. He crooks his fingers up like a fishing hook. She sinks down against the wall, drowning in the warm wave that’s rising higher and higher, stings of jellyfish every time his thumb swipes her clit, her mouth slacked open as she stares up at him, gasping for air.

He finally releases her hands, bending down to grab her thighs, his fingers digging into her flesh right below her ass. And then he’s lifting her up easily, smoothly, like she weighs nothing. Her stomach flips, feeling like she just hit a small bump in a rollercoaster speeding along a track. She wraps her legs above his hips, her arms around his neck.

Now she’s the one looking down at him. His lips are swollen and bruised like overripe fruit, his eyes lidded, his hair tousled.

God, he’s so fucking beautiful.

And he’s all hers.

She feels him shift, unbuttoning his jeans and jerking them down with his boxer briefs, jolting her against the wall as he maneuvers her exactly where he wants her. She doesn’t see his cock but she feels it, hard and hot, jutting against her soaked underwear as he lines himself up. When he goes to push the lace to the side, he’s a little too rough and it rips.

“I’ll buy you a new pair,” is the only warning she gets before she feels the hard tug of him tearing the fabric completely open and off.

She barely registers the rush of cool air on her bare cunt before he’s easing himself in, parting her insides like a knife through butter. Her right arm is slung across his shoulders, her left hand tangled in the black waves at the nape of his neck. When he bottoms out, all the air in her lungs whooshes out.

A few seconds pass as they both bask in this moment. Not a grainy dick pic snapped in a dark dorm room, or stiff silicone that she tries to pretend is Ben’s cock as she buries her face in one of the shirts he left behind. No, this is real. This is happening. _Finally_.

Rey leans down to kiss him gently, slowly, their lips soft and yielding. “I love you… but I need you to fuck me.”

Ben smiles, a devilish little smirk that reminds her of Han at the worst possible moment, but thankfully that thought is obliterated as he starts moving. Out and in, thrusting up, her cunt suctioning him in, the emptiness unbearable every time he pulls out, even though he’s right back to impaling her a second later.

In and out, up and down, over and over and over.

Rey turns her head, noticing a framed poster of _Jules et Jim_ banging against the wall the way it would in an earthquake.

Ben drops her left leg, hoisting her right leg up even higher. Her knee is slung over his roped forearm, his hand gripping her thigh so hard she wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bruise tomorrow. Her hamstring is stretched, burning. She really needs to do more yoga if they’re going to be fucking like this. Then again, this is better than yoga. She suspects she’ll be as limber as an Olympic gymnast by the end of August.

Every muscle in her body is tensing as she climbs, higher and higher, reaching for her release. Her skin is blistering, a sunburn blazing from the inside out.

Ben suddenly swings her right calf over his shoulder, splitting her in half, his dick driving so deep that she doesn’t even mind the burn anymore. Fuck, oh fuck.

In, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out, in, out.

“Come for me, Rey,” Ben pants in her right ear, his breath hot, his right hand gripping her hair as her back slides up and down the wall. “Come on, sweetheart. Come on my cock.”

She can feel his knot begin to swell, desperately trying to catch on her walls with every soaking plunge, slippery slick coating his raw cock, smearing on her swollen cunt.

He presses his forehead against hers, strands of his hair sticking to his sweaty face. “Need to cum inside you.”

_Yes._

“Need to fill you up.” In, out, in, out. “Gonna have this sweet cunt dripping with my cum all summer long.”

_Yes, yes, yes._

Rey squeezes him inside her in a vice grip as tight as a Venus flytrap, shuddering in pleasure when his cock twitches and he growls.

“Gonna have everyone know you’re _mine_.”

It’s not an engagement ring, it’s not a mating bite, but it’s enough for her. Enough for now.

Enough to come, crashing upon rocks at high tide, against Ben’s body, her head on his shoulder, collapsing against him as a sated calm overtakes her like cool rivulets seeping into crevices after a wave recedes. God, it’s even better than she thought it would be. Maybe this long-distance thing isn’t so bad.

Ben follows right after, his cum flooding warm and low in her belly like wine. When he moves her right leg back around his waist, she feels twitching in her thighs, sore everywhere but worth it. Her heart slowly returns to its normal rhythm as he carries her over to his bed.

He suggests watching a movie when they’re unknotted. She agrees, but it’s not long before she drifts off, his arms wrapped around her as he presses her to his clammy chest, their legs entangled, cum cooling and leaking onto the sheet.

Outside the window, the sky cools to a brilliant sapphire, streaks of orange melting into the horizon like an orange slushie.

*

A few days ago, Rey had gone back to Knots, the sex shop on Melrose, for one singular purpose:

To buy handcuffs.

She’d thought of Kaydel as she was standing in the bondage section, scanning the options hanging on metal hooks. Everything from the cold, hard metal kind that police use to fluffy neon faux-fur monstrosities that look like they belong in the Playboy Mansion. She remembers Kaydel had wanted to buy a red pair before Rey popped a hole in her fantasy, reminding her Ben’s headboard was made of solid wood.

But the headboard of Rey’s queen-sized bed has horizontal slots of brushed metal.

She ended up buying “couture” cuffs made of black vinyl, connected together with a gold chain. Cuffs that are currently on Ben’s wrists, the chain wrapped around her headboard’s metal bar.

Ben is squirming against her blue-striped bedsheets, his face twisted in pleasure as Rey gives him a blowjob worthy of porn. High class porn, of course. The kind you pay for. These cuffs cost $45 after all.

“I’m still mad at you, by the way,” she says after she pops the head of his cock out of her suctioning mouth with a wet _plop_.

Ben opens his eyes and looks up at her, leaning over him from his left side, naked on her knees. “Hmm?”

She gives him a pointed look. As her Alpha, her man—he should know what she’s talking about.

“The panty vibe? You wouldn’t have worn it if”—he groans—“you didn’t want the element of surprise.”

Rey’s giving her jaw a break, stroking him slowly up and down, relishing in the thickness, the veins on the sides. She reaches for the bottle of lube on the bed, flips the cap up, and squeezes the mint chocolate-flavored slick onto his dick.

“No, for not coming home on Spring Break. Just think of all the times we could’ve been doing _this_.”

Ben grunts. “I know. But Hux had demanded I come with him to Cancun or else our friendship was over forever… or something dramatic like that.” He juts his bottom lip out, sulking because she’s stopped touching him. “I thought of you the entire time. I barely left the hotel.”

“Yeah, right.” Rey rolls her eyes. “You went to a party city in Mexico. You’re probably in the background of _Girls Gone Wild_ volume _whatever_ , sucking tequila out of some bimbo’s navel.”

Ben laughs. “Uh-huh, you know me so well.”

Rey pretends to pout.

“Seriously, I missed you like fucking crazy. Hux wasn’t too happy with me. Thought I was brooding over Baz. Gave him quite a shock when I told him about us.”

“You told Hux?!”

“Of course,” he replies easily, as if their relationship is the most natural thing in the world. Maybe it is.

Rey smiles, then rewards him by leaning down and taking his cock back into her mouth. He’s softened a tiny bit, but in seconds he’s fully hard again. She bobs up and down, up and down, over and over, enjoying the sounds she’s drawing out of him, the mint chocolate lube wearing off until she just tastes the salt of his skin.

“Undo these,” he demands huskily, pulling the chain taut, making a clanging sound. “I need to touch you.”

“Nope.”

“This is torture.” He grins. “I’m using my safe-word.”

“Oh yeah?” She licks one long, hot stripe up like a lollipop, flicking his head. “What’s that?”

“It’s…” He growls when she puts her lips on him again, this time sucking his head fast as her right hand moves in time with her mouth at the base. “ _Fuck_. Oh fuck.”

“It’s ‘fuck’?” she teases.

“Actually, it’s ‘cousin.’” He bursts out laughing at her scowl, his eyes crinkling, looking quite pleased with himself, the bastard.

“Careful, or I’ll blindfold you too.”

God, she can’t believe she never blew Ben before. She’s never been a fan of blowjobs, only diving down for a few seconds with Cassian as part of foreplay. But his cock wasn’t anything special; an average five inches, not even impressive by Beta standards. Nothing compared to an Alpha. And Ben is even bigger than most Alphas.

His cock is all the way down her throat, her eyes watering, his musky smell filling her nose as it’s buried in the nest of wiry black hair when she feels a gust of cool wind blow against her bare skin.

Only, not from the direction of the windows.

The opposite direction. Where the door is.

“What the fuck…?”

It’s murmured, but Rey recognizes that voice. She’s known that voice since third grade, when she moved here after the accident and found herself sitting alone at lunch. That was, until a girl with long blonde hair and a Hello Kitty lunch bag sat across from her.

Rey pulls up from Ben’s cock, a trail of spit hanging from her mouth. She wipes it against her wrist. “Kaydel?” _Fuck_. “Don’t you fucking knock?!”

“I _did_ ,” she scoffs, her arms crossed across the chest of her red bodycon dress. “Seriously? You two are fucking?” It’s a rhetorical question with a downwards inflection; a statement of fact, one that’s pretty damn obvious.

Rey scrambles out of bed, grabbing her kimono slung on the window seat and swinging it over her body.

“Untie me,” Ben says quietly.

Rey reaches over him and unbuckles the straps as quickly as her fingers can move, keeping her eyes on him as he covers himself with the sheet strewn at the end of the bed. She can’t look at Kay. She can’t see the disgust in her eyes, representative of everyone who will ever find out about them.

This is why she doesn’t want to tell Leia. This is why she refused to even change her Facebook status to “in a relationship.”

Ben stands up, leans down to grab his black boxer briefs bunched up on the floor, and walks over to wear Kaydel is, holding the sheet wrapped around his waist. Kaydel _must_ be livid, because she doesn’t even check him out.

“I think you two should talk,” he says. “Alone.” But before Rey can protest, he’s left the room.

Rey screws her eyes shut, cursing herself for not locking the door. “The least you can do is look at me,” she hears Kaydel say.

Rey sighs heavily, but she forces herself to open her eyes and look at her. “What do you want me to say?”

Kaydel chuckles harshly. “Are you serious?”

“What? You want me to regret it? Because I don’t.”

“Out of all the guys—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Rey snaps. “I’m a cousin-fucker. A disgusting, incestuous freak. _I fucking get it_ , all right?”

“No, I mean… why _him_? God, you could have _anyone_.”

Rey feels all of the anger deflate from her body like a popped balloon. “You’re not grossed out?”

“Yeah, I _am_ grossed out, because my supposed _best friend_ chose to fuck the guy she knew full well I used to be in love with. I mean, I lost my _virginity_ to him. Does the girl code mean nothing to you?”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, not sorry at all. “But I’m in love with him, too. I’ve been in love with him for years.” It feels good to finally say it out loud. Like an addict at an AA meeting.

Kaydel’s ruby lips fall open, her crossed arms loosen. “Wait, what? You’re _in love_ with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Does he know?”

“Yeah.”

Confusion contorts her face, like this does not compute. _Kaydel.exe has stopped working._ She goes to sit on the bed, but then thinks better of it, choosing the window seat. “How long?”

Rey goes to her nightstand table, pulling out her stash. She then leans over the window seat and slides open the window, reveling in the light breeze that flutters into the room, carrying a hint of hydrangeas from the front garden. When she sits down next to Kaydel, she packs the bowl of her blown glass pipe and hands it to her. “Three years, give or take a few months.”

Kaydel’s eyes go wide. She then shakes her head in short bursts as she flicks the lighter. The earthly, flowery smell of OG Kush blooms in the room. “Fuck,” is all she says after exhaling out the window, into the night.

“I know.”

“I didn’t know.” She takes another hit. “I mean, I knew you found him hot… who wouldn’t? Especially as you’re an Omega. But I never thought…” She looks at Rey, seeing her—really seeing her—for perhaps the first time. “I’m sorry. It must’ve been hard for you. You know, seeing us together.”

“It’s in the past. Everything’s good now.”

“So you guys are like… dating?”

Rey nods, letting her process this. She just wishes she would pass the bowl already.

“God, no wonder,” she mutters to herself. “When him and I were dating, there were a few times when he would have a hoodie of yours on the bed as we made love. Like, _huffing_ it. I thought it was just because you were an Omega and he, like, _needed_ that scent to pop his knot or whatever… but maybe he needed _you_.”

Rey bites down the urge to correct her that they were never dating. No need to rub salt in the wound, after all.

“I just wish you could’ve told me.”

“I’m sorry,” Rey says, and this time, she really does mean it.

Kaydel finally passes her the bowl. Rey lights it, the weed glowing orange in the semi-dark, floating in the instant tranquility that washes over her.

“So… any chance you’d be interested in a threesome?” Kaydel jokes, or maybe half-jokes.

“Sorry, I’m the possessive type.”

“Yeah, I would be too.”

“So why are you here, anyway?” Rey wonders. “I thought you were going to Mitaka’s.”

“I did. Got bored. Especially when Snap and Beaumont were drunkenly recreating the ‘I’ll never let go, Jack, I’ll never let go’ scene from _Titanic_ in the pool.”

Rey bursts out laughing at the image, and then can’t stop laughing. She wishes she could’ve seen that. Maybe she should’ve gone after all. “I hope you didn’t leave Rose there.”

“I told her I was leaving, but she wanted to stay. She looked like she was having a good time.”

“Oh, cool.”

“You know…” Kaydel says. “I realized tonight that I’m _so_ over high school.”

“God, me too.”

“I can’t wait until NYU.” Kaydel looks dreamily into the future, somewhere around Rey’s bookshelf. “College parties. Hot frat guys.”

“New York in the fall,” Rey volunteers.

“Trendy restaurants.”

“The Museum of Modern Art.”

“Do you think I’ll meet my own Mr. Big?”

Rey laughs. “Yeah, sure. Maybe he’ll be your professor or something.”

“Promise me we won’t drift apart,” Kaydel says, holding out her pinkie. “Promise me, Rey-bear. You’re going to be all the way in _Brooklyn_ , after all.”

Rey hooks her pinkie with hers, even though she knows it’s not the kind of thing she can promise; even though they’ve already started drifting apart months ago. They might be living in the same city, but in different boroughs, at different colleges, with different majors and classmates and, eventually, friends. It’s inevitable. But they don’t have to think about that right now. They’ve got plenty of hazy summer days left lounging by the pool, working on their tans, day-dreaming about things that might always be out of reach.

*

They order a pizza, then spend the rest of the night watching _Sex and the City_ , raiding Leia’s liquor cabinet to make cosmos at one in the morning.

Rey mentally promises to make it up to Ben tomorrow. She’ll even let him cuff her this time.

*

Diners have always been comforting to Rey. She used to go to them with Rose after the games, sitting near the jocks, cheerleaders, and the rest of the preps as they celebrated with (or drowned their sorrows in) plates of poutine and frosted cups of coke. She’d go to them with Kaydel and Jess after a party, soaking up alcohol with stacks of pancakes, trying to sober up with mugs of burnt, stale coffee.

They’re a place to come down. A place to sit still for a while, refuel, recuperate before going back out into the world. They’re also cheap, which is why her parents would take her to them often. No matter where they moved to once the landlords kicked them out, there was always a diner nearby. Buzzing neon lights and dented chrome. Vinyl seats and tabletop jukeboxes playing ‘50s and ‘60s rock and do-wop. The epitome of Americana; relics of a long-lost, rose-tinted time, demolished more and more as the years go by. She’s sure she’ll be going to as many as possible in New York too, imagining something close to the painting _Nighthawks_ by Edward Hopper.

Yes, diners have always been comforting—which is why Rey feels manipulated right now, lulled into a false sense of security by Luke when he asked to meet her here.

With her hands on the metal bar, she pushes open the glass door, the bell chiming above it. Even though the place is busy with local surfers, out-of-state travelers, and the Sunday after-church brunch crowd, she doesn’t have to look around long. She points at the window booth where he’s sitting when the hostess tells her it’ll be a five-minute wait.

He’s wearing a wrinkled v-neck white shirt and a cardigan vaguely Native American, something he’s probably worn since the ‘70s. His hair is long, his beard whiter than she remembers. He’s staring out the large window, sipping a mug of coffee as the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” drifts out of the small, tinny speakers of the tabletop jukebox.

Rey slides into the teal vinyl seat across from him.

Luke turns to look at her. “Hey, kid.”

She bristles. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

He chuckles. “Everyone thinks they’re not a kid when they are. I thought the same.”

“I’m eighteen. March 19th, in case you’ve forgotten.”

The waitress comes over with a laminated menu and a carafe of coffee, the warm, roasted smell wafting into their booth. Rey smiles up at her politely, then pushes her empty mug towards the edge of the table when she refills Luke’s.

“I remember,” he says. “I sent you a packet of daffodils. Didn’t you get them?”

She did. They went right into the trash. Maybe they’ll spurt up in a landfill, but she doubts it.

“Nope,” she says, pouring cups of creamer into her coffee, a long stream of sugar.

“I sense you’re still angry,” he says. “You have to let go of your anger. Your resentment.”

Rey grinds her teeth together, biting down on things she’ll regret saying later, even if he deserves them. She promised Leia she’d be nice. “Why did you want to meet? Why are you here?” she says instead, wanting to get to the point, to get this over with.

“To see you,” he says simply. “Leia told me you were graduating.”

“Yeah, you missed it.”

“I got the time wrong, I’m sorry.”

“Understatement of the year,” she mutters, bringing the mug to her lips, lukewarm sweetness with a hint of bitterness swirling down her tongue.

“I wish I could’ve been there. I really do.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference. You still missed out on nine years, you know... _half my life_ , so…”

Luke nods. “I know.”

The waitress comes back. Rey orders a cheeseburger and fries. She briefly considered not ordering anything to make a point, but anger’s never dampened her appetite. Luke orders a veggie burger and fries, explaining to her that the entire commune is vegetarian, as if she cares.

A silence descends in between them. Rey randomly scrolls through Twitter on her phone, not really looking at anything. In her peripheral, she sees Luke shift in the seat, rooting in the pockets of his khaki shorts to pull out a quarter. He places it on the table in front of her with a soft _thunk_.

“Play anything you’d like,” he says, as if she’s five.

Rey ignores him.

“I am sorry, you know,” he says, after a while.

“For which part?”

“All of it.”

“It’s too late,” she says. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does,” he insists. “It’s never too late to say you’re sorry.”

“Oh yeah? Which greeting card did you get that from?”

Luke sighs, and in that moment, he looks so old. So defeated. “You don’t understand what it was like for me. I broke down after your mother died. If it weren’t for the commune, I probably would’ve killed myself.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

“I’m not. You don’t know how much I was drinking back then. I tried to hide it as best as I could, but…” He looks down at the paper placemat, advertising plumbers, car washes, childcare centers, all for reasonable rates. _Call now._

“Then why didn’t you bring me to Oregon with you?”

“It was better for everyone if you stayed with Leia. She’s always been so strong; balls of a samurai, as Han used to say. You needed a mother figure, a stable home. I wasn’t in any shape—”

“I needed _you_ ,” Rey bursts out, then retreats into herself, ashamed of how needy she sounds.

“I know, kid. I know that now. I can’t change the past, but I can try to do better.”

They sit in silence again. After a few minutes, the waitress comes back with their food. At least now they have an excuse not to talk.

“I’m seeing Ben,” Rey says as she picks up a fry. She doesn’t know why she tells him. Maybe because she couldn’t care less what he thinks. It’s not like he can stop her. Ground her. Send her to her room without dinner.

Surprise flits across his face, but then he’s shrugging, taking another bite of his veggie burger.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“No, why would it?”

“You know I mean Ben Solo, right? My cousin?”

“Well, it’s not like you’re related by blood,” he says. “Though even if you were, weirder things have happened. I’m not the judging kind.”

Wait. What? “What are you talking about?”

“When I met Mara, she was already two months pregnant. Some scumbag who liked to knock her around a lot. I might not be perfect, but at least I never raised a hand to her.”

The earth has tilted. Maybe she’s been thrown into a parallel universe where everything looks the same but there’s tiny differences everywhere, like an episode of _The Twilight Zone. You are travelling through another dimension; a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind…_ “Why have you never told me?!”

“Because it doesn’t matter,” he says. “You’re still my child. I might not be your biological dad, but my name’s on your birth certificate. You’re my daughter.”

“Does Leia know?”

“No, for the same reason I just said.”

For the first time in Rey’s life, she’s not hungry. “I still think you should’ve told me.”

“Ask yourself if it would’ve made a difference, Rey.”

Would it have? If anything, it would have increased her abandonment complex, believing Luke wanted nothing to do with her because she isn’t his. But no, he’s just messed up. More messed up than she thought he was. Or at least, he used to be.

Ben comes to mind. Ben. Would it have changed things with Ben? All those years of hating herself for wanting him… believing something is fundamentally wrong with her… But no, it wouldn’t have mattered. He’s still her cousin. They still grew up together, in the same house, as cousins. Blood doesn’t matter, not really.

Well… maybe it does, a little. They could get married in any state now, if he ever asks her.

No, wait. Luke’s on her birth certificate. So no. It doesn’t matter.

“I guess not,” she says. She picks up her burger again.

After a few minutes, Luke says, “You know, I saw a carnival a few blocks over when I was walking here. Would you like to go? I’ll buy you a cotton candy.”

“No.” Then, softer: “Maybe tomorrow.”

Luke smiles.

“I think I just need to be alone for a while,” Rey says, reaching for her mini backpack to pull out her wallet.

“No, no. You stay. I’ll go. Finish your lunch. It’s on me.” He pulls out two crumbled $20 bills and places them on the table. She wonders vaguely where he got the cash. Does Leia send him money? Does he have a job? “Order dessert. I heard the cherry pie here is to die for.”

Rey nods.

He stands up, stretching his back. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Do me a favor and unblock me, all right kid?” And then he’s walking away, past the other booths lining the front, out the front door, the bell chiming, taking a little bit of her with him.

Rey sits there, not knowing what to think or feel. She’s not entirely sure she feels anything. She cradles her mug in her hands, just staring.

The quarter is still in the middle of the table.

She picks it up.

Drops it into the jukebox, the coin making a satisfying _cloink_ as it softly trickles down into the machine. She flips through the songs using the plastic wheel.

Sometimes things seem to align perfectly, almost like there’s a higher power, a force, fate, whatever. Like how there’s a song in here that she remembers her parents dancing to in the living room after they had a few glasses of wine, her mother’s head underneath her father’s chin, pressed up close against him, swaying. Rey was supposed to be asleep, but she watched them between the wood bannisters of the stairs, wishing she could find a love like that someday.

_At last..._

Rey slumps back against the teal seat as Etta James croons out of the tiny metal speakers.

_My love has come along... My lonely days are over..._

She gazes around, not hearing the din of the diner anymore.

_And life is like a song..._

She looks at everyone else in their own worlds—the families, the little kids coloring on their placemats. The truck drivers at the counter, just passing through, world-weary and missing home. The old man slowly eating meatloaf with a shaking hand, the seat across from him empty.

She thinks about Mara. About how horrible it is to be a victim of abuse. How frightened she must’ve been, especially when she found herself pregnant. How trapped she must’ve felt. And then how happy, to find someone who didn’t care she was carrying another man’s child. Who accepted her daughter as his own.

She thinks about Luke. This whole time, she always thought about how hard it was on her, but she never really thought about how hard it was on him. She always blamed him, not only for driving the night of the accident, but because he was supposed to be the grown-up. He was supposed to take care of her. He was supposed to know what to do. But part of growing up is realizing that your parents aren’t perfect. Adults don’t have it all figured out. They make mistakes, sometimes big ones. And what’s the point of doing anything in life if you can’t learn from your mistakes? That’s how you change. That’s how you grow. He’s trying.

So she forgives him.

*

When she gets home, she’s rewarded with her second graduation gift: a round-trip plane ticket to France. Brochures of random places from a travel agency. Money for two weeks of hotels and airbnbs, food, museums, taxis, trains, souvenirs.

She’ll get to use the French she’s learned in class and while watching French New Wave films with Ben. She’ll get to sit at café tables and drink café au lait with a rainbow of macarons. She’ll get to take photo after photo of Parisians like Robert Doisneau.

It’s only one ticket, but she won’t be lonely. Not in the City of Lights.

She doesn’t tell Leia what Luke told her. As he said, it doesn’t matter.

*

Rey’s lived her entire life in California. Eighteen years, and yet—despite being a sun child, despite living a mere twenty-five miles away from the coast—she’s never gone surfing. It’s a travesty, Ben says. One that must be rectified immediately.

One sultry day in early August, less than twenty-four hours before Rey gets on a plane to Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris, they go to Hermosa Beach. At a local shop on the pier, they buy wetsuits, rent surfboards.

It’s a beautiful afternoon of laughing, slipping, crashing, swimming, and laughing some more. After the waves settle to gentle ripples, they sit on the beach and stare out at the water, half of their wetsuits unzipped, sand sticking to their skin, their hair tousled with sea salt, wisps already drying in the sun.

Rey’s happy. She really is, she swears. But—

“What’s wrong?” he wonders.

“Nothing,” she says.

“Come on. I know you. I know you better than anyone.”

“I guess I’m just worried about stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?”

Rey shrugs, her finger tracing patterns in the sand. “I don’t know. The future. Being alone.”

“You’re not alone,” he says. “You’ve never been alone. You’ll never be alone.”

“You know what I mean.”

A seagull lands a few feet away from them. They watch it as it picks at something in the sand, then flies off.

“You worried about going to Europe alone?”

“No, I’m actually kind of excited about that,” she admits. “Not that I don’t wish you were going with me. I do.”

“I know,” he says. “You’ll have to send me every photo you take so I can pretend I’m there with you.”

“I will,” she promises. “You’re going to be _so_ jealous.”

He smiles. “I already am. All I got for graduation was a few books and Blu-rays.”

“ _Hey_ ,” she faux-pouts. “I got you _Band of Outsiders_...”

“And I love it,” he insists, hand on his heart. “I’m just saying, you’re clearly the favorite child. But that’s okay. You’re my favorite person, too.”

She flicks sand at him. He laughs, and it’s such a beautiful sound. More beautiful than the rolling waves and sea breeze gently whooshing in her ear.

“So what are you worried about then?” he asks, after a while. “College?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, it’s funny… I’ve spent so long dreaming about getting away from here, and now that it’s happening… I don’t know. What if I fail my classes? What if I find out I’m not as good of a photographer as I think I am?”

“You are. You’re amazing, in every way.”

“You’re biased,” she says, but she’s smiling. “I guess I’m also worried about not having any friends. Not knowing anyone.”

“You will,” he insists. “You’ll meet tons of people. People that have the same interests as you, more than Kaydel and your other friends. Just... don’t fall in love with a pretentious hipster.”

“Don’t worry about that, I already did,” she teases.

He smiles, then brushes sand off her mating gland, leans down, and presses a gentle kiss to it.

“Bite me,” she hears herself say, not having intended to say that aloud but fuck it, she’s tired of holding it in.

Ben freezes.

“Bite me,” she repeats, more surely this time. “I’m not drunk, high, or in heat. I know what I’m saying. I know what I want.” A pause as she watches him swallow, his Adam’s apple moving. “Tell me you want it too.”

“I do.”

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“What if you change your mind? I know we were just joking about it but… what if you really do meet some amazing guy in New York… in pottery class or in some café or whatever.”

“No one can ever mean as much to me as you do.”

“You don’t know that. You _can’t_ know that.”

“I do.”

“Then”—he brushes away a damp strand that the breeze keeps blowing in her eyes—“after you graduate. I promise.”

“Four years?! That’s too long!”

“I want us to do it right,” he insists. “Four years to make sure this is really what you want. That I’m really what you want, forever. There’d be no going back.”

“You said that about sleeping with me.”

“And look what happened!” He kisses her shoulder, looking up at her with puppy dog eyes.

“Maybe what you’re really saying is, _you_ need the time to make sure this is what you want.”

“Rey… I love you. I would’ve mated you by now if I didn’t love you so much. I love you so much that I’d be willing to let you go, just as long as you were happy.”

“ _You_ make me happy. That’s not going to change.”

“And neither will our relationship,” he says. “Just because we’re not mated right now doesn’t mean we’re not together. There’s no rush. We’ve got all the time in the world.” He smiles, wide and pure and free. “Our whole lives.”

He kisses her, tasting of hot sauce from the tacos they had earlier at a boardwalk taqueria, with a hint of sea salt and orange groves, sunshine and sunscreen, jacaranda and palm trees, cruising down the 101. He tastes of California. Of home.

*

This time, it’s Rey's turn to get on a plane at LAX, with Leia and Ben seeing her off.

Right before she has to go, she hugs Leia tightly, breathing in deeply her familiar scent of lilies and musk.

“Call me as soon as you land,” Leia says. “And when you get to the hotel. And before you go to sleep.”

“I will.”

Rey turns to Ben—her sort-of cousin, her best friend, her lover, her boyfriend, her future mate. She’s going to miss him like fucking crazy. She’s only going to be back for two days before she has to fly out to La Guardia, this time on a one-way ticket. And he’ll be gone by then, his semester starting a few days earlier than hers. So this is goodbye.

For now.

He engulfs her into a fierce embrace that lasts so long, she worries she might miss her flight. Right as he finally lets go, he pulls her back, his hands on her face, kissing her deeply. So deeply that she forgets where she is, what she’s doing, where she has to go.

When Ben lets her go, for real this time, she looks at Leia, streaks of panic shooting through her veins. But her aunt’s smiling.

“What, you thought I didn’t know?” she says, laughing. “You two are not subtle. _Or_ quiet.”

*

LA sparkles like champagne and glitter from the window seat at 15,000 feet. Rey puts her headphones on and plays “Ho Hey” by The Lumineers from the playlist Ben made her, leaning against the headrest and staring out the oval window as the plane ascends higher and higher. At a cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, all she can see are clouds and an endless blue sky.

She doesn’t wind the dial on her watch to the time in France, nine hours ahead where it’s already night. She won’t change it to the time in New York, three hours ahead, when she moves into her dorm in two and a half weeks.

She keeps it on Pacific Standard Time, a part of her always in California.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. When I originally started this April 2019 (as a distraction from _In Between Days_ ), I never thought it would come to mean so much to me. Some of you may laugh at that, an ABO “incest” fic meaning anything more than depraved smut to get off on. But I really poured my heart into it, trying to make it as lyrical and beautiful as possible. As much about relationships and growing up just as much as two space wizards fucking in a modern AU setting.
> 
> 2\. Thank you so much to all those who read, kudos’ed, commented, sent me DMs, made me art/moodboards. I’ve read and re-read every single comment, both on the original posting and this re-post. I’m so grateful. If you ever doubt your comments mean something to a writer, know this: I wouldn’t have continued writing this without you. I wouldn’t have continued writing at all without your encouragement and enthusiasm.
> 
> 3\. Believe it or not, this was originally planned as a two-shot. The second chapter was going to have Rey go into heat and (obviously) spend it with Ben. After the flames cooled, they would’ve had a heart-to-heart about their feelings for each other, and then a goodbye at the airport with promises made for four years in the future. Kind of bittersweet, because who knows if they would be kept. But it took on a life of its own, and I couldn’t have made it any shorter if I tried.
> 
> 4\. I originally was going to use TV on the Radio’s “Wolf Like Me” as the chapter song, as the lyrics are incredibly sexy, full of alliteration, and about werewolf sex (which is perfect for ABO).
> 
> 5\. I tried to rhyme this chapter with the beginning: Rey lounging in her yellow inflatable raft, hanging out with Kaydel as hip-hop plays (only she’s grown too with heartbreak; less Mean Girl as Jess now). The situation reversed, with Kaydel discovering Rey and Ben fucking, rather than Rey hearing them together. The blowjob Kaydel was obsessed with giving Ben. The mention of fireflies, only in a more positive light this time. The reference to Jane Austen.
> 
> 6\. For some reason, it’s not letting me link to Rey’s watch. But it’s model OB16PP54. I love Olivia Burton watches; I have two. But not the one mentioned here. They also have ones with vegan leather straps, which is what I have.
> 
> 7\. I imagined the cuffs as something like [this.](https://www.peepshowtoys.com/collections/kinky-pleasure/products/bondage-couture-wrist-cuffs-by-ns-novelties)
> 
> 8\. You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to write the smut, nor how many “sex against wall gif” searches I’ve done to get the limbs, positions, and movement right. I actually dislike writing smut, because it really is like choregraphing a dance, and there’s only so many ways (and synonyms) to describe the motions of sex. But I think the wall sex was some of the best smut I’ve written. Probably has something to do with “Wolf Like Me” playing on repeat as I wrote it. 
> 
> 9\. In case you’re wondering why Ben didn’t come home for Rey’s heat in April if he was permitted rut leave, I imagine that Alphas in rut (and Omegas in heat) are not permitted to travel, especially on a plane. Alphas would be a danger, with the increased aggression and sex drive, along with the possibility of sending Omegas into heat.
> 
> 10\. For eagle-eyed readers, the _Jules et Jim_ poster is not only a reference to Ben’s highbrow taste in films, but also a nod to the ménage à trois theme I found myself writing for some reason (Jess and her two Alphas, and Kaydel’s “joke”). Luke’s daffodils = a flower symbolizing forgiveness. Luke’s comment about Leia having the “balls of a samurai” is a reference to something Harrison Ford actually told Carrie Fisher, according to her memoir _The Princess Diarist._ The reference to Jane Austen’s _Mansfield Park_ = the heroine is secretly in love with her cousin, who courts someone else. And the reference to an ABO adaptation of _Jane Eyre_ is a reference to my own _Jane Eyre_ ABO fic, _She Walks in Beauty_ (which I still have to re-upload).
> 
> 11\. As I said to someone disappointed in the “not actually cousins” twist, I chose to make them non-blood related for a reason: to show it didn’t matter. They’re still cousins. Still family. It’s why she doesn’t even bother telling Leia. Rey believed from the beginning that they could have been together if only they weren’t related, but that wasn’t the real reason(s) holding them back. I also wanted to show that Luke is still her dad; the only dad she’s got, no matter how many mistakes he’s made.
> 
> 12\. If you have Apple Music, there’s a playlist of every song referenced in this fic, arranged in order of mention. Find me on Twitter under @quixoticlux. I write imagining scenes as a movie, which includes a soundtrack playing in the background. Every song has been obsessed over, lyrics-wise, tempo-wise, vibe-wise. Sometimes I’ve spent more time picking them out than actually writing!


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